


Oceans Apart

by ParadiseAvenger



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Brothels, Depression, F/M, Forced Prostitution, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Sexual Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 12:52:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 37,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadiseAvenger/pseuds/ParadiseAvenger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kairi had been taken and enslaved. With kindness only a distant memory, would she ever be able to trust again? Sora's only hope was that saving her would also save him and Riku did all he could to hold them together. Partial AU. Adult themes. SoraXKairi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Life as a Dream, Nightmares as Reality

Please, check out my first ORIGINAL NOVEL! **The Breaking of Poisonwood by Paradise Avenger.** (Summary: People were dead. When Skye Davis bought me at a slave auction as a birthday present for his brother, I had no idea what my new life was going to be like, but I had never expected this. It all started when Venus de Luna was killed and I was to take her place, to become the new savior… Then, bad things happened and some people died. In the heart of the earth, we discovered the ancient being that Frank Davis had found and created and used to his advantage. The Poisonwood—)

Just for the record, I have never played Kingdom Hearts, but I read lots and lots of plot summaries so it hopefully seems like I know what I’m doing. I just need a break from Tsubasa, I think. I feel like I’m writing really badly. Maybe I just need a change of scenery. Kingdom Hearts is similar, but different. 

So, on with the show!

X X X

It had been a long time. She was beginning to lose track of the days, of the months, of the years… She was even beginning to forget the name she had answered to before all this happened–Kairi… ocean… It felt like she had been trapped here, rotting, forever. Her old life was like a dream… a very wonderful, impossibly bright, dream… but a dream…

Deep inside her broken heart, maybe she hoped her friends would still find her, still come for her.

…

It was ice-cold in the room. Plush cushions and smooth silk blankets did little to fight the cold desert night. It was silent outside: no night birds screamed, no small animals skittered, nothing but sharp silence. This place was completely bare of life and happiness. Inside, there were screams and the strike of the whip. 

The red-haired slave, Kairi as she had been known before all this, shivered beneath her cool silk coverlet. Someone pressed against her back, shivering as well. She rolled over, putting her nearly nose-to-nose with one of the younger girls.

“What?” Kairi whispered.

“When do we eat?” the younger girl whispered. She was new to this hell and didn’t know how it was yet. 

Someone shushed her with a foot in the small of her back. Silence was law at night. Anyone who spoke and was caught got a whipping and anyone who didn’t stop them from speaking got a whipping.

Kairi put her arm around the girl’s shoulders and hugged her close to the bare bones of her scrawny frame. That was all the answer the girl needed. Kairi felt her folding in on herself, clutching her empty stomach. She began to shake with sobs.

Dominic liked them thin and bony. He said bones were beautiful and thinness was purity. He was the one that was keeping them there, locked away in so many rooms of his exotic beautiful brothel in the middle of the dry barren desert. There was nothing around for miles in the dead valley. The elements contained the girls that sought to escape and the punishments destroyed the ones who were caught.

Kairi put her back to the crying girl and held her shoulders in her cold hands. Her shoulders felt like the skulls of birds. Shivering again, she put her hand between her sticky thighs and wiped more cum from her core. The scar in her stomach, a deep straight slash, had destroyed her womb when she was first caught. She would never get pregnant, never bear children, never have a family… never escape this hell. Dominic did that to all the girls after they had their first customer to ensure no pregnancy would cripple his business. 

She drew the sheaf of silk around her shoulders and sat up. Beside her, another girl rose. They looked at each other, but did not smile. This was not a place for happiness. Kairi went to the bathroom while the other girl got a drink of water from the sink. Halfheartedly, Kairi tried to clean her intimate places, but it was a losing battle. Sighing, she returned to the room and lay down again. The other girl did not return with her.

Closing her eyes, this time, Kairi fell asleep and had no dreams of her old life.

She did not dream of cerulean ocean-blue eyes or of long silver-white hair, but she wanted to.

…

Morning dawned hot and scorching, burning the shifting desert sands. Customers were arriving downstairs, requesting girls. Dominic was excited to see such an influx of clients and asked the occasion. Kairi, who had been called down for her first John of the day, listened absently as her man put his arm around her naked shoulders.

“The Key Wielder is coming through our city. My wife wants me home so I have to come out and get a good fuck now. God knows I won’t be getting any once he gets there,” one of the men assembled in the lobby said angrily.

“Why?” Another snickered. “You going to let him fuck your wife?”

“If he tries, it’s at his own risk. She’s eight months pregnant and hormonal as hell! I’m thinking of getting a new wife once she spits out my kid,” the first continued.

The third idly gripped Kairi and led her from the lobby. She felt Dominic’s eyes burning into her back, watching her. No hope showed on her face because there was none, just empty blackness, darkness.

This was a brothel. 

He would never come here.

Neither of them would.

She would never be saved. 

Tears burned in her eyes, but she blinked them away. She had known this, but it still hurt to admit it even silently in her head.

The room the John chose was done all in the color blue with faint Chinese embroidery of dragons and kanji and swirling red flames. There was no bed, just mountains of pillows and long soft mats spread out all over the floor. It was like a padded room.

“You’re beautiful,” the man said and twisted his fingers through her hair. “Such lovely hair, a shocking shade,” he said as if complements could change the fact that she was a prostitute in a horrible brothel.

She nodded and closed her eyes. “Thank you, sir,” she whispered, peeled off his cotton shirt, and put her hands against the muscles of his chest. He had a slim build and big strong shoulders, barrel-chested with a mat of thick dark hair from his collarbones down to his happy trail. She wet her lips which he took to be a sign of excitement because then he was all over her. 

His mouth fastened to her throat and his large hands gripped her breasts through her thin silk top. His knee was between her legs and then he had pushed her to the padded floor. Her head knocked solidly against his chin, sending stars shooting behind her eyes. She made a small sound which he took to be encouragement. She felt his hands, cold and rough, going up the inside of her thigh, tracing over the thin lace of her skirt. Then, he pulled down the faint elastic of her skirt that barely kept the clothing from sliding down her legs. Her clothes fell from her frame and he devoured her body. 

She felt him push inside her, tear her apart with the girth of him. He was grunting like a hog in the mud, content, happy. She dug her nails into his back, rending the flesh, but he made a sound as if he enjoyed the pain. A scream caught in her throat as he sunk his teeth into the hollow of her throat, but she tapped it down into a quiet moan of anguish. His pounding became erratic, wild, and then finally heat filled her. She felt it seeping from her core, running down the swell of her ass. Her damaged womb would not take the seed and everything spilled out when she got quietly to her feet and put her mouth around him to clean him up.

“You’re good,” he grunted. “I think… I might make you my favorite.”

She swallowed the salt and felt it welling up in her eyes. She felt as if she was drowning into the ocean of blue silk that surrounded her. She was falling into his beautiful eyes, those eyes that she desired so much. 

And this was only her first client of the day.

…

Exhausted, but fresh from the showers, Kairi spilled herself into the room she shared with the other girls. She lay down on her side and curled in on herself. She felt dirty and tired and used. She was desperate for some kindness, even the fake kindness of a John would have pleased her. She had just fallen asleep when one of the other girls was shaking her.

“Wake up, Red,” she whispered. “He wants to see you.”

A thread of ice-cold fear went through Kairi’s body, settling around her beating heart. All at once, the fear crushed the breath from her lungs and pushed the blood from her heart. She felt flat and bloodless, gutless, worthless.

“Now?” she whispered.

The other girl nodded and lay back down.

Shivering, Kairi got up and padded quietly to Dominic’s rooms. One was his plush bedroom, lavish and decorated in all manner of exotic finery. The other his cold concrete torture room where his whips and chains and knives hung neatly on the walls. He was sitting on his bed when she entered, staring out the window at the night sky beyond. 

“It’s a curious thing,” he said coldly, “that the Key Bearer is coming so close to here. Do you plan to escape and go to him?”

Kairi shook her head. 

Dominic lifted a knife from the smooth coverlet on his bed and ran his finger down the sharp curve of the blade. A well of blood bloomed on his finger and he crooked it at Kairi. She was drawn forward by some invisible power as her feet wanted nothing more than to stay rooted on the floor as far from him as they could. He held out the finger and waited impatiently for her to take it into her mouth. His blood burned her mouth like a poison, coppery and thick and warm.

She gagged.

The blow came out of nowhere. The pommel of his blade slammed into the side of her head and black swam through her vision. She slumped over, teeth nipping the flesh from the tip of his finger in shock. Her shoulder jarred painfully against the floor. She clutched her head, curling in on herself, sobbing in agony.

Dominic’s powerful hand closed around her forearm and hauled her to her feet. He was taking her to the other room, his torture room.

“No, please,” she whimpered.

“You bit me,” he snarled. “You have to pay for that!” He grinned foully at her. “And you have to pay for thinking about the Key Wielder, Kai.”

She whimpered as he dragged her from his plush bedroom. Her limp legs were torn apart on the rough concrete, but it didn’t really matter. More pain was to come to her. Dominic slammed her against the wall, face first so that her jaw cracked unpleasantly against the stone. Then, he shackled her wrists and stepped away. Her body sagged uselessly and tears dripped down her face.

“What to use? What to use? Ah, here we are.” Dominic was saying to himself. 

Then, she felt a knife, like a chip of ice, begin to carve into her back. She screamed, howled in anguish. Her heart thundered against her ribs. 

Dominic chuckled. “Look at the blood,” he whispered and his tongue trailed up the column of her spine. “So sweet, Kai. I love your blood. Let’s see more of it, shall we?”

He filleted the skin on her back, peeling it off in layers and strips. She heard her flesh hitting the cold concrete and the pain reared white-hot through her blood. She prayed to pass out, prayed! But he fisted his hand in her red hair and pulled her head back. Tears ran down her face.

“That was for biting me,” he snarled in her face.

“I’m sorry,” she rasped.

He grinned. “You will be. The whip is next and that’s for thinking of the Key Wielder.”

Kairi swallowed blood. 

Dominic released her and she heard him selecting a whip. His favorite was the Cat of Nine Tails with all its broken bits of glass and razors sewn into the stinging leather. He prided himself on cleaving flesh from bone with every swing. 

Again, though, those eyes came to her. Clear beautiful wonderful blue, like the ocean she missed so much. And the hair like spun silver floss.

When the whip landed on her filleted, skinned back she screamed of a thousand pains. Inside, her broken heart cried.

…

Kairi was spilled back into the room two hours before dawn. The other girls fussed over her, cleaning her wounds as best they could and wrapping her in a sheaf of blood-colored silk to hide any blood that escaped. She had stopped crying. Her throat was numb and dry from screaming. She felt dead, worn out. For once, she actually wanted to die.

Without the hope that her friends would save her, nothing was left. But life was never that simple, was it? Maybe later she would look back and wish that she had died at this very moment, because the future that awaited her was even more painful. 

She closed her eyes.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	2. Darkness in Him, Fear in Her

It’s all rainy here.

X X X

One week later, Kairi’s back had healed enough for her to once again begin accepting customers though it was still healing and sore. She kept the damaged flesh disguised with a sheaf of crimson silk wrapped around her shoulders over her low-cut translucent bra, holding the fabric low and tight to show her slender shoulders and her rosy nipples.

Today, someone special was coming so she had been chosen and then made up to be beautiful. Her hair was pulled back from her face with pearl combs and a touch of makeup had been applied to her cheeks. Her lips were painted glossy red. Her lacy skirt had been replaced by gauzy red fabric bejeweled with pearls that hung so low on her hips that a trace of her red curls was visible. One of the other girls helped her slip on a short string of pearls around her throat and then gave her small pearl earrings.

She was trying not to shiver as she descended the stairs into the lobby of the brothel. Her feet hurt and her knees were bruised. Her back still ached and itched as it healed. She didn’t feel pretty or human or anything. She felt like a doll held upright on her master’s tattered strings. At any moment, the string could be cut and she would fall into the abyss.  
Finally, the plush Persian carpet was under her feet and she looked up to see who their important guest was. Her heart skipped beats and her mouth ran dry.

It was Sora and, behind him, Riku. 

Sora was older, taller, but he still had his slender build and his wild brown hair spiking in so many directions. His shoulders were strong, but narrow, and his tan arms were lithe with corded muscle from wielding his blade. His long legs were powerful, bunched with tension. He looked uncomfortable, eyes darting. His handsome face was pale and he had lost weight, stripping his already thin body to the bones. The eyes she had dreamed about were still so beautiful, but barred with pain and darkness. 

Riku had changed more noticeably. He was far taller than Sora, as always, and his silver hair was long down to his shoulder blades. He was buff, like a body builder, so powerful that he frightened her for a moment. Riku looked annoyed but at ease. He looked the same as she remembered him, untroubled but surrounded by the air of Devil-may-care.

Dominic’s eyes lit on Kairi. 

She feared she had been called to ‘entertain’ her friends.

Sora turned slowly, rotating on his ankles so carefully that she thought they were broken. His eyes ran over her from head to toe and she shuddered, clutching her shoulders in her hands. For a moment, no spark of recognition bloomed in those beautiful eyes and she feared he had forgotten her. Then, a fire lit inside them. A sound came from his mouth that cut through everything like a knife, slicing deep into her broken heart, cleaving everything in half. 

Riku was whirling around now, silver hair flying. He saw her, recognized her, and then—surprisingly—dove for Sora. Riku caught the back of his friend’s shirt, but Sora tore so easily from his grasp. The Key Blade was already in his hand, appearing from inside his body. His face was wild, a far cry from the young man she had known. 

Sora was immediately over the counter and on top of Dominic with his blade pressed into the man’s throat. Dominic’s eyes were wide and he gripped the blade, trying to save his throat. Sora was pushing through him with his weapon like Dominic was made of butter instead of flesh and bones.

“You hurt her,” Sora hissed. His teeth glowed white as his lips pulled back. 

Then, Riku slammed into him from the side. They both went sprawling, rolling. The side of Sora’s head hit the counter and blood blossomed on his face, rolling down his throat. His beautiful eyes rolled back in his head. Riku scooped him up quickly and got him away from Dominic. As he was laying his friend at Kairi’s feet, Sora snapped back into consciousness. He lashed out wildly, striking Riku in the gut and sending him flying backwards. 

Again, he was on his feet, staggering from the blow to his head. He looked like a demon, wild and frenzied and enraged. He leaped for Dominic, swinging his blade with expert ease.

“Sora, no!” Riku shouted. “Don’t you kill him!”

His words went through Kairi’s heart, speared it like a delicacy to be eaten. Sora was not a murderer. He fought Heartless. He killed monsters, not humans. Dominic was a horrible person, but he was still human. Sora wouldn’t kill him, would he?

Sora raised the Key Blade and slammed it into the side of Dominic’s head with intent to maim rather than kill.

Riku barreled across the room at full-tilt. He got his arms around Sora’s waist and jerked him backwards. Again, they went sprawling. Finally, Riku got Sora underneath him and pinned his hands above his head. The Key Blade spun away to rest at Kairi’s feet and Dominic’s blood was splattered all over it. She trembled, shivering, shuddering. 

“Let go!” Sora snarled.

Riku shook his head and his silver hair hung down in Sora’s face. Sora struggled viciously, lashing at Riku as though he really meant to hurt him just to escape his friend’s hold and get back to Dominic. Kairi’s legs buckled beneath her and she slumped to the floor.

Girls and Johns were beginning to come down the stairs behind her, drawn by the commotion.

“Shit! That’s the Key Bearer!”

“He attacked Dominic!”

“We’d better get out of here!”

Riku raised his voice over the clamor. “Everyone stay exactly where you are,” he ordered. Then, quietly, “Kairi, are you alright?”

She didn’t hear him. Someone’s hands were on her shoulders, pulling her back.

Sora continued fighting, making that sound he had made before—something between a scream and a howl. Finally, though he could best Riku in combat, Riku was bigger and heavier and far more muscular. Successfully pinned, Sora quieted and grew still.

“He hurt her,” Sora whispered.

“I know,” Riku whispered. “We’re here now. It’s alright.”

Sora closed his eyes and appeared to be willing himself to relax. Finally, Riku got off of him but kept a firm grip on his elbow to stay him. Sora’s blade went back inside him in a mess of sparks and light. Then, Riku began directing everyone and Kairi was lost in the excitement.

…

Everyone bowed to the will of the Key Bearer. Within hours, the brothel was emptied. The stolen girls were returned to their homes and families, to the people that loved them. The Johns were sent home as it was not a crime to visit prostitutes. Dominic, on the other hand, had maimed and beaten them. He had taken their ability to bear children and their innocence and abused them so badly that some would never heal. 

Riku marched Dominic into the hands of police with the threat of Sora released to encourage the bastard to cooperate. He would be tried and surely put to death for his crimes as the penalty for such heinous acts in this country was death.

Sora, Riku, and Kairi were one of the last to leave. Only police stayed, cleaning up the crime scene and cataloging the books.

Kairi was sitting on the stairs, wrapped in Sora’s jacket in an attempt to soothe her shivers but to no avail. 

“Kairi,” Riku said gently.

She looked at him, but not into his eyes. She watched his mouth, watched his lower lip curl with anger and his upper lip pull back to show his teeth. 

“Hey,” he repeated and gently put his hand on her shoulder. “Come on. We’re going to take you home.”

His tongue darted out, touched his upper lip. Take her home? With them? Part of her knew her friends would not hurt her, but the damaged part of her thought she was now to become a slave to the people she had hoped would protect her. Home?

“Kai.” Sora’s voice was soft, even though he didn’t appear to be whispering. 

She looked up at his mouth. His lips were thin and pale, dry and cracked bloody at the corners. His teeth looked sharp and alien, bright white. Her nickname, what Dominic had often called her when he took her into his personal bed or beat her black and blue, speared through her chest. She shivered, unable to find her voice.

“I think she’s out of it,” Riku said quietly to Sora. “I’m going to pick her up, but I’m not sure if she’s going to like it. Go ahead and open the ship.”

Sora hesitated, fingers clenching and unclenching at his sides.

“That bastard is going to die. All that matters is that we’ve got her now,” Riku said. “Go. Go and open the ship.”

This time, Sora did go. 

“Kairi,” Riku said again. “I’m going to pick you up. I’m not going to hurt you. We’re going to get on the ship and we’re going home, okay?”

She couldn’t nod. She felt frozen and unsure. Fear bloomed inside her. She clutched Sora’s jacket tighter only to be surrounded by the scent of him. It was distinctly masculine, less the smell she had remembered in her dreams. She tensed, but allowed Riku to lift her carefully. 

He cradled her against his chest, holding her shoulders and beneath her knees. “Shit,” she heard him mutter. “Your body is all bones.”

She whimpered and closed her eyes tightly. She felt blood seeping from her back, but dared not say anything. 

The interior of the Gummi-ship had changed. There was a bridge with all the gadgetry neither she nor Sora had ever been permitted to touch and moderately large room arranged with furniture for transporting friends and comrades over long distances. The ship had a small kitchen added in one corner of the common room and there was a hallway that lead back to what appeared to be two bedrooms and the open door of a white-tiled bathroom. 

Riku set her gently on one of the couches in the common room and waved to Sora who was sitting at the controls of the ship. “Let’s get out of here. We don’t need to wait for anyone, do we?” Riku asked and left Kairi to take the controls from Sora.

Sora was already shaking his head and she felt his eyes on her. 

Riku put his hand on Sora’s shoulder. “No,” he said quietly. “Let her rest. Go shower and take some of those pills you’re supposed to be taking. Then, bring her out some of your clean clothes. Mine are too big.”

Sora looked about to protest, but then he nodded with defeat. When he walked by Kairi, he didn’t try to touch her. He didn’t even look at her. He just went into the room that must have been his, gathered clean clothes, and disappeared in the bathroom. The door closed silently. 

Sora was like a ghost, so quiet.

Kairi thought of his reaction to Dominic at the brothel. He had been wild, like a threatened animal, all razor teeth and sharp claws. He had been going to kill Dominic. He had tried to go through Riku to do it. The Sora she remembered and dreamed about was gone. This new Sora was horribly violent and broken. 

She was afraid of him.

…

Sora returned to the bridge after only twenty minutes. He had some clothes tucked under his arm. He went right to Riku and sat down in the copilot’s seat. 

“Did you take any?” Riku asked sternly.

Sora shook his head.

“Why not?”

He rolled his shoulders. 

“You almost killed that guy today.”

“He hurt her,” Sora said simply and guided the ship through a cloud.

“That’s no excuse.”

Sora was silent again, staring straight ahead, fiercely ignoring Riku.

Riku sighed heavily, took the fresh clothing from Sora’s lap, and went to Kairi where she was still curled up on the couch. “Hey, Kairi. How are you doing?”

She didn’t answer and didn’t look at him. 

“Alright,” he said softly and sat down beside her. She stiffened. “Here’re some of Sora’s clean clothes. There’s a bathroom straight back down the hall. Shower and put these on. Once you’re finished, we’ll see if we can find something safe to eat.”

“Yes,” she whispered. She took the clothes from him and, where their fingers brushed, her skin was ice-cold.

Riku didn’t say anything, but she knew he felt it.

The bathroom was completely white. The floor and walls were tiled simply in white and there were fluffy white towels, all bare of designs, which was a massive change from the lavish brothel all decorated with untouchable finery. There was a plain shower and tub, both plain white, with an off-white shower curtain. There was a white door that closed off the toilet. The only other colors in the room came from the toiletries—brightly colored toothbrushes, combs, razors, deodorant, and a big red First Aid kit. 

Sora had always been a little clumsy.

She started to giggle, but trampled it down.

Kairi closed the door and started the water in the shower. She laid the clothing Riku had given her, Sora’s clothes, on the vanity and carefully began peeling off her clothing from the brothel. Her back was scarred and red and sticky with dried blood. Dominic had beaten her good. The scars would never fade.

Naked, she stepped beneath the stream of warm water. There was shampoo, conditioner, and soap already in the shower. She quickly but gently washed her back and her sticky core. Then, she lathered the shampoo through her long scarlet hair. It took her less time than Sora to shower, but she spent a few minutes sneaking gauze from the First Aid kit to bandage her back. 

Then, she balled up her brothel clothing and put them in the sink. Slipping into the clothing Sora had brought her—a pair of his boxers and a long t-shirt—she realized the press of her naked skin against the cloth. Shivering, she pulled his jacket back on and zipped it tightly to her chin. 

Something rattle in the pocket of the jacket and she curiously put her hand in. There was a bottle of antidepressants with Sora’s name on it and the instructions: Take twice daily by mouth and more often as needed not to exceed five doses. She quickly shoved it back into the pocket and zipped it up.

Her mind returned to Sora’s enraged face and Riku shouting for him not to kill Dominic. 

“Sora…?” And his name felt alien on her lips.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns?

Review, please!


	3. Their Perfect Picture, Back Then

Oh, anyone who has played these games and sees some horrible error I have going here (like if Key Blade is one word and Riku’s eyes are really blue or something) if you’d let me know so I can consider changing it. That would be lovely.

X X X

Kairi padded lightly from the bathroom in her bare feet, gripping her brothel clothing tight to her chest, and returned to her seat on the couch. Riku was nowhere to be seen and Sora was silently piloting the Gummi-ship. She didn’t have the courage to speak to Sora as she once would have. She was afraid of him. She only wanted to talk to Riku. 

Sitting as silent as Sora, she stared at her hands in her lap. 

Then, a hand touched her shoulder. She leaped to her feet with a scream of surprise. Startling Sora, the ship swerved wildly and then evened out. Riku was standing behind her, looking equally as shocked as Sora’s piloting had revealed him to be.

“I…” Kairi whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Smiling sadly at her, Riku rubbed the side of his head and said, “S’okay.”

For a moment, the entire ship was dead silent. 

Then, Riku cleared his throat. “So, are you hungry?”

She shook her head. 

Riku scrutinized her and narrowed his green eyes. 

“I… I’m just tired,” she confessed.

“You should eat something,” he said to her and then called to Sora, “Both of you should.”

Sora didn’t respond and Kairi shuffled nervously.

Sighing, Riku gave in. He wasn’t their mother; he was just their tired friend. “Alright, take Sora’s room then. There’s less in it. We’ll both bunk in my room,” Riku told her. “It’s the one on the right.”

Kairi nodded and shuffled a bit more. 

“What is it?” Riku asked.

“Um, these clothes… what should I do with them?”

Sora’s voice shot through the room like a sudden bullet, quiet though it was. “Burn them,” he snapped. “Burn everything from that place.”

Kairi began to tremble.

Glaring in Sora’s direction, though the young man was oblivious, Riku took the clothing from Kairi and said with a small smile, “I’ll take care of them, okay?”

She nodded and hid her shaking hands. Her eyes were down but he saw tears welling in them. She didn’t quite run to Sora’s room, but she didn’t drag her feet either. When the door closed quietly behind her, Riku whirled on Sora.

“Where do you get off acting like that to her?” Riku demanded and hurled her clothing at Sora’s spiky-haired head. The ball of cloth tipped over the top of his head and spilled into his lap. Riku was still yelling, even as Sora released the controls and pawed through the clothing in his lap. “What the hell is your problem?! You were supposed to get better once we found her, not worse!”

“Riku…”

“Sora, you have to stop being like this! You don’t take those pills regularly! You go off like a bomb sometimes!”

“Riku…”

“Kairi is back. She’s safe with us and, you know what, she’s fucking terrified of you!”

“Riku…”

“God damn you, Sora!”

“Riku!” Sora hadn’t raised his voice, but there was something in his tone that stopped the words in Riku’s throat. Then, Sora’s voice failed him and he could only whisper, “Look…”

Riku bent over him and they both looked at Kairi’s clothing. 

The back of her shirt and the sheaf of silk she had been wearing around her shoulders were covered in a thin layer of dried blood. The panties she had been wearing were stiff and thick with semen in the crotch, disgustingly thick, as if she hadn’t had clean underwear in days. Over all of her clothing, there were white stains of semen and crimson patches of blood.

“That was a brothel,” Sora whispered as if the thought of his friend being whored out to men hadn’t occurred to him. 

Riku put a hand on Sora’s shoulder, immediately sorry for shouting at him only moments before. He would have apologized, but Sora wasn’t paying him any mind. He was looking at the door to his bedroom, where Kairi was.

“Don’t,” Riku said sternly. “Go to my room and lay down. I’ll take care of the ship and wake you if I get tired.”

Sora nodded absently, still looking after Kairi. 

“I mean it,” Riku warned him. “Get in there and take one of those pills.”

This time, he knew Sora was listening because the young man put his eyes to the ground. Sliding into the pilot’s seat, Riku glowered over his shoulder at Sora until he disappeared into the room they would be sharing and the door closed silently. If Sora decided to sneak into Kairi’s room while Riku was flying the ship, nothing would stop him. Sora was like a ghost, a wraith. 

Riku turned his attention to the controls and put everything else out of his mind.

…

Kairi hesitated in Sora’s room. It was bare of anything and everything. His clothes were tucked away, dirty clothes crammed in a hamper, bed made with nondescript sheets. It was cold and impersonal and she found herself wondering what Riku’s room looked like. She hesitantly went to his dresser where she saw the frame of a picture laying face down.

Her eyes welled with tears.

It was them, all three of them. She was in the middle, as she always had been back then, holding Sora’s hand tightly with her other arm hooked around Riku’s neck. She was smiling, a real beautiful smile that showed her straight teeth. Her hair had been short then and scraped back by a single butterfly clip. She had a blue hibiscus blossom behind her ear, the color of Sora’s beautiful eyes.

Sora, beside her, close to her, as they had been then, was grinning his trademark Sora-smile, all goofy and joyous. His hair was wild, wet, but impervious to the attempts Kairi had been doing to flatten it. He was shirtless, wearing only his swim trunks, and perfectly tan. Kairi had always envied him for that as her skin freckled and burned.

Riku, jerked unhappily into the photo by Kairi’s arm, was as shirtless and tan as Sora. His silver locks were pulled back in a ponytail, courtesy of Kairi. His green eyes were full of good-natured anger and Sora had gotten a good whipping from him afterwards. 

She remembered that day now. They had gone to the beach for the day. She spent the day hiding beneath an umbrella, lathering on sunscreen, while the boys carelessly played in the ocean without a care in the world. They decided to race to the cove and back, whoever won would prove it by getting a hibiscus from the bush on the island in the center of the cove. Sora had won, of course, and given the flower to Kairi. She remembered how she had blushed, how he had smiled his crooked smile. Bribing them with ice cream, she got the boys to agree to a picture. 

One picture.

Riku had blinked for the first one and tried valiantly to escape before the second, but Kairi had yanked him in. Hence, the photograph.

She smiled and found the courage to go to Sora’s bed and lie down. 

She was used and violated, beaten and scarred, frightened but finally as safe as she could ever hope to be. She was naked beneath his clothes and sleeping in his bed. His antidepressants were drilling into her side in that bottle. She clutched the covers to her chest and buried her face in his pillow. 

Again, his strange scent assaulted her nose. It was so masculine, sweat and blood and power, but beneath it… she smelled the old Sora. She could smell hibiscus and the salt of the ocean and the metallic scent of his Key Blade. 

The Gummi-ship was bobbing gently as it flew. The engines were humming soothingly, like the breath of another. It was warm and safe here, wrapped in the cocoon of Sora’s clothing and her friend’s ship. She curled up tightly and snuggled deep into the bed. She could hear Riku’s distant music and his tastes hadn’t changed. Sora was quiet, silent, as if he was dead. She heard nothing from him and that troubled her, but… 

Inhaling deeply, Kairi finally managed to fall asleep.

…

It was the first night she had been gone. 

She remembered the blow that had smashed her into Sora, sending them both sprawling and, in that moment, they were overwhelmed. Riku was shouting for them, but tied in his own battle. He could do nothing to help. Hands tore her away from Sora, though he tried to hold her to him with one arm while wielding his Key Blade with the other, and pressed that horrible chemical into her lungs. Her vision was spotty by the time Sora managed to break free from the other slave traders and come after her.

“Kai!” 

She reached out for him, but was unable to speak.

Then, with her last memory of his panicked face and his beautiful cerulean blue eyes, she was dragged backwards into the waiting slave ship.

She woke up with unfamiliar faces milling around her and her lungs burning from chloroform. 

“Where am I?” She rasped.

The girls shushed her and she could feel them cutting her clothing from her body.

“Stop! What are you doing?” She struggled, but one pinned her down.

“Be quiet or it’ll be a lashing for us all. Shh, it’ll all be over soon, honey.”

“Where is Sora?” That was the only questions she would risk a beating to hear answered.

“It’s best you forget everything now. Just forget it all,” the girl said.

“Never,” Kairi whispered. 

The girl shook her head and held Kairi down while the others cut off her clothes and cut the bottoms of her feet to prevent her from running away. She hadn’t screamed even when they cut her, or when Dominic came for the first time and put his hands between her legs, pushing his fingers inside her and crudely proclaiming, “A virgin.”

She had always hoped Sora would come for her, that he would save her.

She didn’t cry the first night, but she did after the first month when her first John came. She heard him talking to Dominic, saying that the Key Bearer had finally left this country. Then, she lost her virginity to a man she didn’t even know. Or, more directly, she was raped.

Then, that night, was the first time she cried.

…

Sora could hear Kairi crying out in her sleep across the hall, in his room. He was tempted to leave and go to her, but he knew Riku would be watching. Riku was protecting Kairi, protecting her from Sora and his wild emotions. Sora would like to be hurt, feel some anger towards Riku for denying him his friend, but he knew Riku was right.

Sora was too unstable, too wild. 

He had almost killed that pimp today. God knew he had wanted to and surely Riku had, too, but Sora had been unable to control himself. Riku had had to take him down, wrestle him to the floor and pin him there. There was a gash in the flesh above Sora’s temple to show just how hard Riku had had to hit him to get him off.

His fingers twitched and curled against the sheets. He imagined Kairi lying beside him, lying on her side and gazing at him with her warm indigo eyes. That was how it should have been, but he hadn’t been strong enough and she had been taken from him. 

Now, she feared him and trusted Riku.

Sora knew he should have taken those pills, but he wanted to escape them. He didn’t want to depend on them anymore. 

Kairi was back. She was safe. She was home.

Everything could go back to the way it had been now, right? But life was never that simple.

Sora kept thinking about her clothing, the blood and semen on her. Kairi was so broken, so hurt. She needed to heal far more than her body and, God damn it, he hoped maybe she would at least trust him again.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	4. His Pain, Her Word

Wow, I’ve pounded out four chapters in one day. I must really have needed a break considering that “The Twisted Picture” got a chapter maybe every other day and they were like 1,000 words long with long author’s notes. This one is hitting over 2,000 without author’s notes. 

WAHOO!

Ehem, anyway…

X X X

They had made it back to Destiny Islands in record time and in once piece considering Riku hadn’t wanted to wake Sora and had nodded off at the controls a few times. Now, safely docked in the Sky Harbor, Riku could go to his room and get some much deserved rest. He was still sore from taking on Sora, from holding him down, even for just that short amount of time. He didn’t want to admit it, but if it wasn’t for just the fact that he was bigger than Sora, he probably wouldn’t have been able to stop his friend. They were both so strong, but Sora was just too strong.

After Kairi had been stolen, Sora worked his body to the bone: barely eating, barely sleeping, just searching for her, searching for her, for a month. Then, he began having horrible nightmares when he did finally pass out from sheer exhaustion. Starving, unable to sleep, obsessed, roaming the city night and day, picking fights with anyone who remotely looked like one of the traders that had taken Kairi… Sora lost himself in this.

Sora had been dying. 

Riku took him away from the world where Kairi had been stolen.

Sora woke up screaming in the new world and he fought Riku. Riku didn’t want to admit it, but if the exhaustion and malnutrition hadn’t stolen Sora’s strength, he would be dead right now. 

Sora would have killed him.

They spent two weeks training alone there. They were both obsessed with strength. After all, they had been there when she was taken, but had been unable to save her. Riku nursed Sora’s body and mind back into shape with antidepressants and sleep aides and strange foreign roots with healing properties. 

Then, they traversed the world, searching for her.

Riku flopped down on his bed. Sora had pulled out a cot from the closet and was lying on his side, making small sounds in his sleep. His narrow back was a fortress of bone, rising and falling jerkily. He was dreaming, having nightmares, but about what Riku couldn’t be sure. Sora never spoke of his nightmares, not even to his doctors.

Riku pressed his head into his pillow and tried to ignore his friend.

After a moment, Sora grew so quiet that Riku actually sat up to check on him.

Sora was sitting up in the bed, sheets pooled in his lap, looking into the darkness as if he saw something lurking there. Moonlight glinted off the pale sweat-slick curve of his face, his cerulean eyes glowed in the dark, and some soft brown hair was plastered to his face.

“Sora?” Riku muttered.

“Are we home?”

“Yeah…”

Sora didn’t say anything, but he lay back down and was dead silent again. 

In that dark dead stillness, Riku managed to fall asleep, but he dreamed of coffins for the rest of the night.

…

When Kairi got up the next morning, clutching Sora’s jacket closed over her breasts with one hand, Sora was already awake. He was sitting on the couch, legs crossed Indian-style in front of him with is head bowed. She couldn’t see his face through his hair.

Clearing her throat, she called a faint, “Good morning…”

Sora’s head didn’t snap up. He raised his eyes slowly and for a moment, everything between them met. His pain, her pain, their fears, their hopes, all the things they had been through. Then, the smallest of smiles touched Sora’s thin pale lips.

“Good morning, Kai,” he said quietly. 

The moment he spoke, the spell was broken. Kairi shuffled nervously on her bare feet and twisted a lock of red hair around her finger.

“Umm, are we there?”

Sora nodded and lowered his face again. 

This gave her the courage to go and sit beside him on the couch. She perched delicately on the edge, digging her fingers into the bare flesh of her thighs. She had been staring with such rapt concentration at the crescent-shaped marks her nails made in her flesh that she didn’t notice Sora until he had already touched her.

“Stop,” he whispered. “You’re hurting yourself.” Then, he gently took her hand and held it between both of his own. 

She shuddered, wanting to pull away, but forcing herself not to. This was Sora and no matter what he had become, he would never want to hurt her. As she lifted her eyes to meet his, she realized that Sora would never hurt her. 

Sora was trust.

Sora was safety.

Sora was her friend.

She touched the back of his hand with the tips of her fingers and it dawned on her that he was not wearing gloves. The skin was smooth and ghost-pale from lack of sunlight and there were small faint freckles fringing the top of his wrist. His fingers were long and slender and his nails had been chewed to the quick like hers were. 

“I’ve never seen your hands before,” she whispered. “You always wore gloves.”

“I stopped after you were… taken…”

She shivered and tried to pull away.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered and gripped her hand tightly. “Please forgive me…”

She couldn’t find her voice, but when she did it was hoarse and dry. “For what?”

“I was right there,” he whimpered. “I was right there with you and I couldn’t protect you. They took you right out of my arms. I had you right at my side and I lost you.”

Her heart started hammering in her chest. “No,” she whispered.

“I’m so sorry,” he sobbed and there were tears in his voice. He bent over her hand, holding it tightly, so close that his lips touched her skin. “It’s all my fault. If only I had been stronger… I could’ve saved you. I could’ve protected you!”

Kairi’s stomach got that floating feeling of sickening fear. She felt a scream welling in her throat. Her mind raced with too many thoughts, whirling in a manic maelstrom. 

Sora could’ve saved her, but he didn’t…

He was right there, but he couldn’t get to her…

He let her be taken away. He spent so long finding her…

A small part of her mind voice that it wasn’t his fault. That he had come as soon as he could, that he was so thin and his eyes were barred, that he was taking those antidepressants, that some part of his was dead inside from losing her, but it was too quiet among her other thoughts. 

She thought of their picture, turned face down on his dresser, and jerked away from him. 

“No,” she whispered and she heard coldness in her voice.

Sora looked up into her face, into her eyes. His cerulean eyes were shattering inside, the light was going out of them, breaking down. Everything that was left of him was going out, flickering and fading. She watched his face shatter like a dropped plate, spilling across her heart. The shards of him cut into her.

“No?” Sora whispered.

She shook her head.

Behind them, Riku’s door opened and he yawned loudly. “Sora? Kairi?”

Sora didn’t look at either of them. He just ran from the Gummi-ship like the Devil was at his heels. 

“Sora?!” Riku shouted, but he didn’t follow. He looked at Kairi. “What happened?!”

She felt tears welling up in her eyes, making slow trails down her cheeks.

“Did he hurt you?”

She shook her head.

“Then what happened?! Tell me, I need to know!”

“I destroyed him,” she whispered. 

“What? What the hell happened?” Riku demanded and sat down beside her. He gripped her shoulders and jerked her to face him, ignoring the way she cried out. “Tell me what happened. Now.”

She started sobbing and then fell into him. “Riku, he didn’t come for me. He let them take me,” she cried.

“What? Where the fuck did you get that idea?!”

“He told me. He was apologizing. He said it was all his fault! He wanted me to forgive him.”

“What did you say to him?”

She whimpered and sobbed.

Riku shook her, rattling her teeth together. “What did you fucking say to him?”

She shook her head. “No…”

“Oh God,” Riku said and rubbed his face with his hand. “Shit, Kairi. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. We were blindsided and they stole you. It wasn’t his fucking fault, but he’s thought that since it happened. He has this complex where he wants to take responsibility for the entire world on his shoulders.”

Kairi sobbed into Riku’s chest.

“Jesus, Kairi. He almost died after you were taken. He didn’t sleep and he didn’t eat. He just looked for you constantly. I had to take him away and force him to get healthy again. He had nightmares,” Riku told her. “He’s been so fucked up since this happened.”

Riku pushed her back. “Stay here. I have to get him. I have to find him. I’ll send someone here for you, but I have to go. I have to go now.”

Then, he was gone and she was alone again.

…

The sand was burning hot beneath his cold feet. Sora was tearing what felt like a hundred miles an hour down the beach, but it wasn’t fast enough to escape the feelings that were chasing him or Kairi’s bitter word.

_No…_

Sand kicked up behind him. 

His bare foot hit driftwood and he went sprawling. Sand was in his eyes and his mouth. He was breathing it in and it was so heavy. He didn’t think he could get up again. The surf licked the side of his face, ice cold. It reminded him of Kairi’s word.

_No…_

“Sora! Sora, where are you?”

Riku’s voice. 

“Shit!”

Then, his friend had his hands on his shoulders and was dragging him out of the waves. He brushed sand from Sora’s eyes and mouth and cupped his hand over his face to see it he was breathing. He was, strongly, panting from his run. He wouldn’t die so Riku could scream at him.

“Jesus, what the fuck are you doing?!”

He couldn’t speak, just stared up at Riku with half-blind sand-filled cerulean eyes. 

“Sora, God damn you!” Riku shouted. “You and your fucking mind. It’s not your fucking fault. We’ve been through this!”

“But, Kairi…”

“She’s fucked up, too. Now get up! Let’s get you cleaned up,” Riku snapped. 

He dragged Sora impatiently to the boardwalk where there were showers and drinking fountains. He started one of the showers and shoved Sora beneath it, clothing and all, rinsing the sand from his friend’s face. Then, Riku went to get a cool drink from the fountain, watching Sora from the corner of his eye. After a long moment, Sora began to rinse his face and wash out his eyes. He saw him chewing, chewing the sand in his mouth because it hurt his teeth.

“Spit that out,” Riku snapped.

Sora closed his eyes, but did. He spat enough sand for an entire sand castle. 

“Alright,” Riku said once the water shut itself off. “Can you see?”

Sora nodded. 

“Let’s go then. I left Kairi back on the ship alone,” he said.

Sora shook his head. “She doesn’t want to see me.”

“Too fucking bad,” Riku snapped. “You aren’t getting out of my sight and since I have to go get her, you’re coming too.”

Sora shivered, but he reluctantly followed after Riku as he led the way back to the ship.

Kairi’s word just rang over and over again in his head like a never-ending rack of torture.

_No… no… no… no… no… no… no… no… no… no…_

“Hey, keep up with me,” Riku called.

_No… no… no… no… no… no… no… no… no… no…_

What did it all matter…? She blamed him.

X X X

Poor Riku is babysitting these two and he’s not getting paid. (It’s because he’s older.) I hope they shape up soon or else Riku is going to snap and knock their heads together, but maybe that’s what they need right now. Hmm…?

Questions, comments, concerns?


	5. The Triumphant Return

Yay! My normal wonderful reviewers are following me over into this fic! I’m so happy! That’s must mean not everyone is mad at me! Yayayayayayayayayayayay! 

Thank you Anime Lover Bebe for my first review!

X X X

Riku slammed Sora’s butt into the sofa cushions next to Kairi. The girl jumped and began to shiver uncontrollably. Sora was looking away, unable to lay eyes on any part of her. Riku could see his eyes peeling away with sadness and self-loathing. Riku got a chair, turned it around, and sat down in front of the two younger adults, but now that he had them here, he didn’t know what to say. 

Kind of desperately, he cracked his knuckles to help him think, but was saved from further thought by Selphie barging through the open door on the Gummi-ship. She was holding her jump rope in one hand, low, and running. Of course, she got her foot in it, tripped, and went sprawling on her face. “Owwies,” she whimpered and then sat up, clutching her nose. “Sora! Riku! Welcome back!”

Then her eyes fell on Kairi and all the words evaporated from her lips. “Is that…?” The jump rope fell from her limp fingers.

Riku nodded and quickly scooted into her way as she barreled towards Kairi. “No, don’t even think about,” he said. 

Selphie glowered at him curiously, but listened to him. She gently hugged Sora as she always did when they returned to Destiny Islands for a short break. “Hey, Sora, how’s it hanging?”

“Fine,” he said softly and neither responded to her embrace nor looked at her.

Selphie stepped back from him and looked solidly at Kairi. Finally, she said, “Kairi, it’s… good to have you home.”

“It’s good to be back,” Kairi whispered. She glanced at Riku and then at Sora and then back to Selphie. “You’re Selphie, right?”

Selphie nodded. It had been a long time and Kairi had surely been through Hell. She held no bitterness at Kairi forgetting her name, but even if she did, Riku gave her no chance to act on it. 

“So, Selphie, how did you know we were back?” Riku asked.

“Yuffie told me,” she said with a shrug.

“And how does Yuffie know?” Riku prodded with a quirk in his brow.

“Yuffie knows everything,” Selphie said as if that explained everything and, since Yuffie was a ninja, it kind of did. 

Sighing, Riku said, “Well, since Yuffie knows, how many other people know?”

“Just your close circle,” Selphie said.

“Then how do you know?” Riku teased.

She stuck her tongue out at him. “I am part of said circle!”

They laughed, but it fell flat. Sora and Kairi were sucking the happiness from the room.

Clearing his throat, Riku continued. “So, since Yuffie spilled the beans, who’s putting us up until we can get a house again?”

Selphie put her jump rope over her shoulders. “Tidus and Wakka, of course. They’re always waiting for you two to come home and stay for good. They practically drew up a legal document saying they had dibs to house you when you finally got back,” she said.

Riku jerked his head at Kairi.

“Yuffie and I will take Kairi,” she said immediately. “We have an apartment so it will be a little small, but we’ll make it work for as long as we need to.”

“Alright, then it’s settled.” Riku clapped his hands together and turned to Sora and Kairi. “Let’s go, you two!”

Selphie tried to smile when Kairi looked at her, but she just wasn’t able to.

…

“Umm, before we go,” Kairi ventured. “Could we, umm, go to the beach…? I want to see the ocean.”

Riku nodded. “Selphie, why don’t you take her? Sora and I have to pack up our clothing before we head out.”

“Sure,” she said and Riku mouthed, ‘Don’t touch her.’ Puzzled, Selphie nodded and led Kairi from the Gummi-ship.

The sun was blessedly warm on Kairi’s skin, kissing her bare thighs and her face. She sighed and inhaled the scent of the sea. Immediately, it reminded her of Sora and how she had hurt him, how his face had broken into so many pieces, how his eyes had dimmed. She felt sick. Putting a hand to her stomach, she felt the scar that had taken fertility from her and it only made her sicker.

“Are you alright?” Selphie asked.

Kairi nodded and followed her down to the beach. The sand was warm between her toes and her feet sunk deep. Kairi padded ahead of Selphie, in a sudden hurry to reach the breaking waves. The cool water lapped at her toes and she looked around at the surroundings she had dreamed for.

She saw running footsteps in the sand, followed by a second set, and then a place where one had fallen. Riku and Sora, she knew without a second thought. Sora had run from her here and collapsed. She saw their footprints slogging toward the boardwalk.

She bit her lip. 

Selphie came up behind her. “I see Yuffie. I need to talk to her. Wait right here. I’ll be right back, okay?” 

Kairi nodded and she heard Selphie rushing away through the sand.

For a long moment, she looked out over the breaking waves, drinking in the beauty she had missed so much. The sea was the color of Sora’s eyes and again she felt horrible. She knew she had to speak with him, tell him she was sorry, fix all this, but… part of her didn’t want to.

Part of her did blame him.

She felt his pills heavy in the pocket of his borrowed jacket and thought of throwing them into the waves. Both to make him suffer without them and with the hope that maybe he wouldn’t need them anymore now that she was back. She had never felt so torn between two things.

Shivering as the cold waves licked up her shins, she unzipped his jacket and put it in the sand beside her. There, she gazed at it, picturing him inside it. Then, undecided, she put it back on, zipped it up, and turned to look for Selphie. 

The spot of bright yellow, Destiny Island’s personal sun, was bounding towards her already, grinning. “Come on Kairi. You’ll be staying with Yuffie and me. Let’s tell the boys we’re going to head over there and we can catch up for dinner or something later, okay?”

Kairi nodded and hurried after her through the warm sand.

On the horizon, dark clouds were brewing.

…

Back on the Gummi-ship, Riku and Sora were packing silently. Sora was finished long before Riku was as he had only the bare minimum of everything in his bedroom. Shouldering his two bags, Sora went out into the common room and sat down on the couch waiting for Riku to finish. He had confessed his sorrow to Kairi here and she had crushed him like an insect. His throat filled with stones that he couldn’t swallow. 

He wanted pain, physical pain, not this terrible heart ache.

He needed those pills, but they were in the pocket of the jacket he had lent Kairi.

Selphie poked her head into the ship and called, “Sora? Riku? Anybody home?” in her happy singsong voice. 

Kairi trailed behind her, drowning in Sora’s jacket with sand stuck to her legs. She looked at him and then lowered her eyes, ashamed. She tugged Selphie’s sleeve and whispered, “I need to talk to Sora, alone, for just a second.”

“Ah, I don’t know, Kairi,” she said nervously looking from Sora’s bowed form to Kairi’s trembling one. Riku could barely take Sora and if he lost it and went after Kairi then he could break her body in half like a dry twin with the slightest twitch of his long fingers. 

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s Sora…” Unspoken: he won’t hurt me…

Selphie bit her lip and then nodded. “Alright, I’m going to talk to Riku, then. Stay in here, though,” she said.

Kairi nodded and watched Selphie’s bouncing curls as she flounced to Riku’s room. The door closed loudly behind her and she heard Riku start yelling. Biting her lip nervously, she approached Sora, but did not sit beside him on the couch. Instead, she knelt at his feet and then spread herself in a bow across the floor. Her fingers were inches from his feet, nails digging into the floor.

She heard him breathe in sharply.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It’s not your fault.”

He sighed and touched her back gently. 

She hissed, whimpered. 

“Don’t kneel, Kai,” he murmured. “It doesn’t suit you and don’t apologize… not to me…” 

She sat up slowly and Sora looked as if he wanted to touch her, but denied himself that. 

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “It wasn’t your fault. I was afraid… I wanted someone to blame…”

“You found the right person,” he said. “It was all my fault.”

“No…” she whispered and her fingertips ghosted over the naked backs of his hands where they rested on his knees. “It wasn’t you… I’m so sorry…”

“Why are you sorry…?” he asked.

“I hurt you and all you’ve ever done is save me. Riku told be about… after I left…”

“You were taken, Kai. Say taken, not left.”

“After I was taken,” she said quietly. “He told me about you…”

Sora made a small sound in his throat. “This is all Riku’s doing, then,” he said bitterly.

“No,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, Sora…”

He looked into her eyes, looked through her soul, and she wondered what he saw. He held out his hands, palms up for her and she timidly put her fingertips into his hands. His skin was warm and soft and his touch was gentle. 

Sora was safety and it had never been his fault. 

It was her fear. Her fear had twisted her broken heart into a defensive spiked thing, crushed bloodless and cold in her chest. Sora would never hurt her and he would never allow her to be hurt. He was her savior, her guardian angel, her protector. 

She wanted to smile for him, but it was trapped somewhere inside.

“I’m sorry,” she said again and pulled away. 

Sora looked at her mournfully, but did not try to draw her back. 

Riku and Selphie emerged from his room, talking and bickering. Riku led Sora away and Selphie led Kairi, but they both looked back. For a small moment, cerulean met faint indigo and held. Then, they were both pulled apart to walk in different directions. 

It felt like there was an ocean separating them.

…

Stepping out of the Gummi-ship, Sora inhaled deeply the scent of the home he had not been to in what felt like years. Yes, he and Riku had often stopped back between worlds, checking in and making sure Kairi hadn’t somehow returned before heading out again, but he had been too concerned with finding her to actually enjoy his home. 

The island was beautiful. 

The flowers were all in bloom, the clear sky went on forever, the sand was pearl white, and the ocean was clear perfect blue. People he knew milled on the streets: the ice cream vender, Yuffie all laden with groceries, Selphie and Kairi rushing to help her, the old woman he used to pull weeds for when he was a child, the old man who sold Paopu Fruit in the dead of summer, people he remembered seeing on the beach, a beautiful blonde Kairi used to yell at him for staring at…

His lips curved at these memories.

Sighing, Sora followed obediently after Riku, but dragged his feet through the sand.

Riku finally stopped to look back at Sora, do demand what was taking him so long, but when he saw his friend’s face turned up at the sun and his wounded-looking mouth curved with a faint smile he just didn’t have the heart to yell. “Are you happy to be home?” Riku asked lightly. 

Sora nodded, looked at Riku, and smiled something similar to the smile he had had before Kairi was taken. “Yeah. It’s good to be back,” he said softly. “I feel safe here.”

“It’s always been safe here,” Riku said.

Sora shook his head. “No, not always,” he murmured and looked into the looming clouds on the horizon. 

Maybe Sora sensed it even then…

X X X

Dun dun dun! The plot thickens, right?

Questions, comments, concerns?


	6. No News is Good News

Good morning all!

Yawn...

I couldn’t sleep last night. My head was spinning at a million miles an hour. Blargh, so I figured I’d get up early and do some typing.

X X X

Yuffie was all darkness and lithe cat-like grace and swear words. Decked out in black and blue clothing with her pale violent bikini beneath her clothes as was customary for many people on the island, she looked different than Kairi remembered. She jammed the key into the lock, grumbled something fierce, and finally unlocked the door. 

“Why did you buy so many groceries?” Selphie muttered as she tried to adjust one of the bags on her hips. 

They had given Kairi the bags with eggs, bread, and some fruit to carry though she had offered to take more. Yuffie said she looked like she was going to drop at any moment, now the all were.

“Lots of stuff we like was on sale and I knew we had Kairi coming so I bought a gallon of milk instead of a half,” Yuffie said absently and kicked open the door. She set down her purchases on the kitchen counter and turned to take the bag from Kairi while Selphie struggled to get her bags onto the kitchen table. “Just make yourself at home,” Yuffie said to Kairi.

Kairi nodded.

The apartment Yuffie and Selphie shared was decorated a little strangely. It was all Selphie’s bright colors and wavy lines mixed with Yuffie’s dark blacks and blues and straight edges. Somehow, they had made it work the best in the living room. The walls were Yuffie’s deep twilight blue and Selphie’s pure white leather couch. Selphie’s pictures of brightness and light, wavy and flowing–burning sunsets over the beautiful beach, bright orange and pink hibiscus, a glowing yellow Paopu fruit, the outline of beautiful people on the beach–covered the walls. The television was set deep back in a dark wooden armoire and the curtains over the windows were thick dark blue velvet and Kairi timidly put her hand to the soft cloth.

She heard Yuffie laughing behind her and turned. “It’s a little crazy, isn’t it?”

Selphie appeared behind her and smiled as well with her hands behind her back. “Our tastes are so different that it was hard to decorate our shared spaces. We had a lot of trouble deciding,” she explained, “But somehow everything turned out right in this room.”

Yuffie giggled. “The bathroom… not so much…”

Kairi smiled as well, but faintly. “I think it looks nice,” she confessed.

Selphie laughed. “Are you kidding?”

Kairi shook her head. 

“Just wait until she sees the bathroom,” Yuffie said by way of settling the discussion and returned to the kitchen to put away groceries. “Selphie, these are not going to magically put themselves away. Get out here and help me before the ice cream melts.”

“Uh oh,” Selphie said and scurried off to help Yuffie.

Standing alone in their wild living room, Kairi put her hand on the glass and sighed. The Island was beautiful, glowing with light and color, blooming with flowers and memories. Selphie and Yuffie began to argue in the kitchen, unable to find space for certain things in the fridge. It was nice to hear a good-natured squabble where Kairi didn’t have to worry about quieting them or hear the sting of the whip on their skin later that night. It was good to be home and better to be safe. She clutched Sora’s jacket tighter around herself and the strange scent of him wrapped around her like protective arms.

She was finally safe.

…

Across the island, Tidus and Wakka didn’t even greet Sora and Riku when they came in. The two boys were playing video games on the huge over-sized couch that took up most of the space in their sparsely furnished living room. 

Riku slammed the door purposefully and said, “Hello?”

Sora just smiled. Some things never changed and this was one of them.

“Hey, guys. Just a second,” Wakka said and returned to taunting Tidus. “You wanna pass me, but you can’t pass me–”

“He passed you,” Riku said and put his forearms on the back of the couch. 

“No!” Wakka shouted.

Beside him, Tidus was grinning from ear to ear. “Tighten this turn, ignition switch, and hyper-speed! Yeah, alright!”

“No!” Wakka shouted again. “No!” He was beginning to sound like a broken record. 

“So, how was the latest venture?” Tidus asked as he had less to concentrate on. It was good to be winning.

“We found Kairi,” Riku said plainly.

“What?!” Tidus whirled around and Riku pointed a finger back at the screen. Tidus whirled back around just in time to see Wakka sideswipe him and take the lead. “Oh man, but that doesn’t quite matter right at this second. You found Kairi?! Where is she? How is she?”

Then, Riku scratched the back of his neck as he decided just how much to tell these two. If Yuffie didn’t know Kairi had been found in a brothel in the desert far far away, then the chances were no one did and he wasn’t sure if Kairi wanted that to be common knowledge. “Yeah. She’s staying with Selphie and Yuffie in their apartment and Selphie said you two had legal rights to put us up until we can get a place of our own,” he said. “She’s alright, but she’s going to need some time to recover.”

“Why? What happened to her?”

“She was kidnapped!” Riku barked. “She’s had it rough. Give it a rest.” Then, he put Tidus in a headlock.

Sora was lingering in the threshold of the living room, silent, looking passed the commotion out the window at the storm brewing in front of the sunset. Suddenly, his entire back went ramrod straight and his cerulean eyes rolled back in his head. He crashed to the floor like a felled tree, hacking deep in his chest.

“Sora!” Riku shouted and rushed to his friend’s side. 

Then, as if pulled like a puppet on string, Sora sat up. The room was dead silent and the only sound was Sora’s quick rasping breath. There was a hard knock at the door, once and then twice, and Sora’s eyes snapped back into his head. 

“Jesus, what is it?” Riku asked and gripped Sora around his narrow shoulders. 

“Open the door,” Sora whispered. “It’s Goofy and he has bad news.”

“How do you know that?” Tidus asked. 

Wakka was already at the door, already pulling it open. Behind it stood Goofy, looking mournful and angry. “I was told Sora is here,” he said and it was almost like a question, but not quite.

Sora rose slowly to his feet and pushed past Wakka. Riku trailed after him, drawn by something.

“What is it?” Sora whispered and there was unbelievable sadness in his voice.

Goofy looked fight into his eyes and then looked at Riku. “It’s the man that had Kairi captive,” he said. “He managed to escape. He left this.” Goofy held out a sheet of paper folded into the shape of a crown, Sora’s signature sign, and the words Key Bearer were scrawled on the front. 

Sora’s hands were shaking too badly to open it quickly, but Riku did not take it from him. Finally, Sora got the complicated folding open and spread the paper over his palm. It was simple as the threats of bad people often were.

_I’ll get the bitch. I’ll destroy her._

That was all. 

Sora ripped the paper into shreds. “We have to go,” he said to Riku. “We’re putting them in danger.”

“I know,” Riku said. “We need to get Kairi. Let’s go to the Gummi-ship and just get away from the island.”

Sora shook his head. 

Riku knew what he meant. If they ran, Dominic would chase them and it would never be over. Kairi would never be safe and she would never heal. Sora would never get better.   
Riku turned back to Goofy. “When did he escape?”

“Just last night.”

“Alright, that doesn’t give us much time.” Riku turned to their friends. “Tell no one where we were or that you’ve seen us or where we’re going.”

Wakka and Tidus were already nodding. “We won’t sell you out,” Tidus said plainly and Wakka said flatly, “On pain of death.”

“Thanks guys,” Riku said and watched as Sora shouldered his bags and followed quickly after Goofy. Shit, please let this end well, he thought to himself and they walked out into the brewing storm.

…

Riku knocked firmly on Selphie and Yuffie’s battered apartment door. There was some yelling and scrambling inside and Yuffie pulled open the door. Her head band had been slouched down over one eye haphazardly and Selphie’s curls were all in disarray behind her. 

“Riku?” Selphie called. “What is it?”

“Where’s Kairi?” Sora said, shouldering Riku aside and getting straight to the point.

“She went out for a walk. Selphie was being obnoxious,” Yuffie snapped, but she didn’t get another second to explain because Sora had already whirled around and rocketed away. 

“Sora!” Riku shouted. “Damn it! Find her and go back to the Gummi-ship! I’ll meet you there!”

Goofy was looking on all of this with confusion as Riku gathered their things and raced off as well. He was left standing at Selphie and Yuffie’s doorway with them looking at him curiously. He gave them the condensed version of what had happened and they swore not to reveal their friends’ on pain of death. Goofy smiled to himself. 

Everywhere he went, even in moments, Sora earned complete loyalty from those around him. He was a wonderful Key Bearer.

…

Sora tore down the street at full-tilt, barreling between friends and strangers. People called out to him, shouted for him to slow down, yelled and cursed at him, but he didn’t care. He had to find Kairi. He wouldn’t lose her again… never again…

He tore down the alley that led to the beach and ripped up a path across the sand. He glimpsed red hair ahead of him and ran all the faster, stopping only to grab the girl with red hair who was not Kairi. She yelled at him, “What’s your problem?!” But he was running again, searching wildly for her. Then, he glimpsed his jacket from a distance, all bright and dark colors blurring together with Kairi’s red hair swirling around her face in the sea breeze. She was walking away from him, into a spot of darkness somewhere ahead of her.

Sora pumped his legs harder, losing traction in the dry sand as he scrambled to catch up to her. He couldn’t get a deep enough breath into his lungs to yell her name so he just had to run faster. He could feel his body breaking down, being pushed to the limits.

Then, finally, he gasped her name and she turned quickly. He skidded to a stop, losing his footing on the soft sand and landing in a heap at her feet. For a breath, he panted to fill his lungs and then scrambled to his feet. He grabbed for her hand, heedless of the fear that flashed through her indigo eyes, and tried to pull her away.

She stumbled a few steps after him and then found the strength to pull away. “W-where are you taking me?” she asked. 

“To the ship. It’s not safe,” Sora said and tried to take her hand again. 

She scrambled away from him, tripped over her feet, and fell hard on her back in the sand. Sora’s eyes darted over her head, to the man that was approaching them and bringing darkness. It wasn’t Dominic, just a boy on the beach. His dark eyes lit on Kairi and his mouth curved in a grin. 

“We have to go,” Sora said desperately.

Kairi’s face was a wash of chalk-white fear.

The man hurried to Kairi’s fallen form and reached to touch her shoulders. His thoughts were clearly exposed on his face and emanating through his dark heart.

“Don’t you touch her!” Sora shouted and the Key Blade appeared in his hands. He lashed violently and viciously at the man, striking the side of his head. The man crumpled in a boneless heap and Kairi let out a scream of pure terror that cut through Sora like a knife.

“Why are you doing this?!” 

“He would have hurt you!”

Kairi sobbed and the hair on the back of her neck went up. Thunder boomed overhead like cannon fire and the rain began to fall, pelting through her like needles. 

Sora reached for her again. “Please, it’s not safe…”

“Stay away,” Kairi whispered. “What’s wrong with you?”

A chill went down Sora’s spine, gripped his heart, and crushed it.

“I… I want to protect you,” Sora whispered but his voice was lost in a crack of thunder. 

Kairi sobbed into her hands.

Lightning struck the sand inches from them, turning it to glass. Sora couldn’t afford to waste any more time here. They could be killed. He grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her waist, and put her body over his shoulder. She started screaming and struggling, fighting him with terror pumping through her veins. Finally, the Gummi-ship was in view and Riku’s silver hair was a beacon in the storm.

Sora and Kairi spilled through the door and Riku closed it. Kairi crawled away from Sora, sobbing and screaming. Sora lay there, wrapped around himself, shuddering, on the floor.

“What happened?” Riku demanded of Sora and went to Kairi where she had backed herself into the couch. Her eyes lit upon his face, took him in, and then she threw herself on him. Riku put his arms around her and held her tightly. Her body was ice-cold and trembling wildly. “Sora, what the fuck happened?”

He felt the bottle of pills in the pocket of the jacket Kairi was wearing. Sora hadn’t been taking them. Swearing, Riku dug the bottle out and spilled two into his palm. He wrenched Sora’s face up, squeezing his cheeks and digging under his jaw. Sora’s mouth cracked open and Riku shoved the pills in. He covered Sora’s nose and mouth, smothering him, forcing him to swallow. Then, he stepped back and returned to Kairi. 

He just left Sora there on the floor. There was nothing more he could do.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	7. Sora Breaks

Hmm, I should be doing some work but I don’t want to.

X X X

It was dark and late and the storm was raging like a wild beast outside the Gummi-ship. The ship rocked in the wind, swaying almost soothingly. The rain pattered against the windows like a thousand tapping fingers. Thunder roared like the beat of a heart, rattling the windows, and lightning was flaming bright, illuminating the world in flashes.

Riku had laid Kairi down on the cot Sora had slept on in his room the night before. After that, he had dragged Sora into his own room and shoved him into bed. Then, he returned to his room and looked at Kairi. She was lying on her side, sobbing silently into her hands.

He sat down on the edge of the cot and put his warm palm on her back. She rolled over and looked up into his face. Her wide broken eyes drilled through him and she trembled with sobs.

“Riku,” she whispered.

“Yeah?”

“I… I’m afraid… of Sora…”

A terrible chill went through Riku and Kairi reached desperately out to him. Her fingers clutched his shirt, dug into the stone-hard muscles beneath. Riku hugged her tightly against him, rubbing her back, but she only sobbed harder and trembled as if her body would break.

“Please, that hurts…” she whispered.

“Hurts?”

“My back… it’s all cut up… I was beaten… for thinking of Sora… for wanting to be saved…”

Riku took the hem of her shirt and lifted it over her back, revealing the bloodstained pads of gauze taped neatly over her wounds. Around the fresh wounds, there were ugly twisted pearl-white scars and healing bruises. She had been beaten within an inch of her life it seemed. If Dominic had beaten her one more time, she wouldn’t have made it.   
She would have died. 

“Jesus,” Riku muttered and held her tightly against his frame. “It’s okay. You’re safe here. We’re going to protect you.”

“But Sora…” she whimpered.

“Sora won’t hurt you, Kairi.”

“But, he’s…”

Riku held her tightly, coddling her against his chest. She listened to his steady strong heartbeat and her eyes fluttered closed. Within moments, she was deeply asleep pressed up against him. Riku knew he should have pushed her away, but for once in the history of their friendship she wanted him. 

She didn’t want Sora.

She wanted Riku.

When they were teens, before Sora was gifted and cursed with the Key Blade, Riku had had a crush on Kairi. But as they grew older, and after Sora sacrificed so much to protect her, Kairi devoted all her love and attention to him. Now, Kairi had the same aura of pain and heartbreak around her as Riku did. They had a new bond, a new connection, and Riku’s love for her was returning.

He shook his head, trying to clear the thoughts from his mind.

If he took Kairi from Sora, Sora would break.

But, for once, she wanted Riku and Riku was selfish. He wanted her, too.

But, Sora…

Sora needed her.

…

The storm raged all night, howling like a shrieking banshee. Sometime in the night, Riku freed himself from Kairi’s clutching embrace and returned to his own bed. He lay awake for a long time, staring up at the dark ceiling and listening to the storm. Finally, around six in the morning, the storm broke and the world fell silent and still. Riku could hear Sora get up, heard him go to the bathroom and start the shower. Then, Riku swung his legs out of his bed and got up. 

Kairi was still deeply asleep, clutching the pillow to her chest. Her eyes were wet with tears even in her sleep. He wondered what she was dreaming about.

Since she was still sound asleep and Sora was in the bathroom, Riku decided to just change right there and do it quickly.

Kairi whimpered in her sleep as if she sensed his naked flesh so close to her. She tossed in her sleep, rolling over and shoving down the blankets to her waist. 

Sora’s jacket was unzipped and she was wearing one of his long tank-tops beneath it and a pair of his boxers. The swell of her breasts was visible over the neck of the shirt, nipples hard with the chill in the air, and the boxers did little to disguise her long shapely legs with the sheets twisted between them. 

Riku peeled his shirt over his head and was just unzipping his pants when Sora knocked lightly and then opened the door. It was the worst possible time for Sora to look in on them. Riku felt all the color drain from his face and his voice got caught in his throat. 

Sora’s face shattered and he looked from Kairi’s beautiful revealed body to Riku’s half-dressed form. His cerulean eyes broke, darkened, and once again became barred. “No…” he whispered and took a step back through the threshold of the doorway. He whipped his head from side to side, eyes darting wildly, and he bit down hard on his lower lip. Blood bloomed and ran down his chin. Then, Sora whirled around wildly and ran from the ship.

“Sora! No!” Riku shouted. He wanted to chase after Sora, but at the same moment, Kairi lurched up in her bed screaming.

Torn between the two of them, Riku had to make a decision. 

He had been taking care of Sora since Kairi had been stolen from them: wrestling Sora down when he lost it, forcing pills and food down his throat, tying him to the bed to make him sleep. Nothing he did ever helped Sora, just limped him through his life, preventing him from dying. 

Kairi needed her friends. 

She needed Riku and she wanted him.

Sora would have to wait…

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Riku asked, barreling back into his bedroom and sitting down beside Kairi. 

She hesitantly touched his naked heated flesh with her fingertips. Then, she made a small broken sound in her throat. 

“Sorry. Hold on, Kairi, let me get dressed.” 

She didn’t look at him as he pulled on a fresh t-shirt and zipped his jeans up again. Then, he sat beside her again and put his arm around her shoulders. She didn’t pull away from him, but she didn’t lean into him like she had last night.

“What were you dreaming about?”

“Dreaming?”

“Yeah, you were crying in your sleep and then you woke up screaming just now.”

Kairi looked puzzled and she twisted her fingers in her lap. She gripped Sora’s jacket and clutched it tightly around herself. Then, she inhaled deeply, looked at the jacket she was grasping, and then pushed it from her naked shoulders. 

“Can I have some clean clothes?” she whispered and laid Sora’s jacket gently aside. 

Riku looked at her, went to his closet, and pulled out a heavy sweatshirt. Kairi’s anorexic frame would drown in it and he would have to roll up the cuffs for her, but she eagerly pulled it on over her head and pushed the sleeves up over her wrists. The sweatshirt fell down to her knees, hiding all of Sora’s clothing that she was wearing beneath it.

She looked like Riku’s, but beneath, she would always be Sora’s.

…

Three days passed without incident. 

Dominic hadn’t made an appearance or sent any threats.

The storm was long gone and the horizon was clear and bright. 

Their friends had loyally not contacted them, not given them away, not even mentioned them in town.

Their return with Kairi was the best kept secret in the history of Destiny Islands.

The only trouble was between the three friends. Since the night of the storm, Riku and Kairi had spent every moment together. Kairi had taken to wearing his clothes rather than Sora’s. Every day, Kairi’s confidence around Riku grew, but declined around Sora. 

This destroyed Sora. 

Sora was dying again, falling apart. He was slumping back to the way he had been before they had gotten Kairi back. He was taking more and more of his antidepressants each day, maybe exceeding the maximum dosage. His eyes were barred, revealing no trace of emotion anymore. Sora’s beautiful eyes had always been the windows to his wonderful heart, but now… there was nothing in his eyes. There were like blue glass marbles… empty hollow glass orbs. He wasn’t sleeping at night anymore, even with his sleeping pills. The nightmares woke him constantly and Riku could hear him crying out in his sleep. There were deep dark bruise-like circles under his cerulean blue eyes.

Sure, Riku felt guilty.

Especially when Sora began losing weight rapidly. His clothes hung off his frame more than usual, so much that Sora began tightening his belt so that there were bunches of loose fabric around his waist. Sora’s body was breaking down again.

But his guilt was not enough to make him relinquish his hold on Kairi. 

She wanted to be with him. 

She wanted him. 

Not Sora, him!

Sighing, Riku sat up in bed and looked over to where Kairi was sleeping peacefully on the cot in his room. Sora was awake, milling around the Gummi-ship, as he did every night when the nightmares woke him. Riku didn’t know what he did. Maybe he just paced back and forth.

It didn’t really matter.

Kairi murmured in her sleep, rolled over, and reached out. Tossing her head, her crimson-ruby red hair spread out across the creamy white pillows. Her brow wrinkled, tears slid down her cheeks, and she bit her lip. Her fingers grasped the sheets, dug into the mattress, and she moaned very quietly.

Riku watched her nightmare-plagued sleep and listened to Sora unable to sleep. Finally, Riku nodded off and slept deeply undisturbed by everything.

…

Sora was exhausted. The last time he had taken too many sleeping pills and passed out, his nightmares had woken him within an hour. Now, popping another antidepressant into his mouth, he took a small sip of water to wash it down. 

He hadn’t been able to eat anything in the past two days, hadn’t even felt like eating. He only managed down water and a few crackers because he knew he had to eat something, anything. His stomach was clenched into a terrible ice-cold knot that made it hard to eat or drink anything. Sometimes it was all he could do just to keep down the crackers or sips of water he managed to swallow.

It was Kairi.

Kairi claimed his every waking though and feeling and even his sleeping ones. 

Riku swallowed up all of his anger and sorrow and pain. 

They had both been in love with Kairi for as long as she had been between them. And now, with Sora pushed away, Riku had irrevocably claimed Kairi as his own and she had allowed him. She had taken to wearing Riku’s massive clothing rather than Sora’s smaller ones. 

Sora knew Riku saw what their relationship was doing to him, but he just didn’t care. So much for their friendship and all the things Sora had gone through to find him and bring him back. Sora had sacrificed everything he was for Kairi, to save her, and he had given up everything to find Riku and bring him home again, but it seemed that none of that mattered anymore. 

After all, Riku got the girl and Kairi had someone who could give her everything she needed. Why should Sora matter to them anymore? 

Sora’s stomach clenched again, pain spearing through him, and he doubled over. He hit his knees, gasping for breath. 

He heard a door open. 

Either Riku or Kairi had gotten up.

He prayed that whoever it was would overlook him, but with the way his life was going, it could never be that simple. 

“Sora?” Kairi’s voice was faint and timid.

He didn’t say anything, just clutched his stomach and gasped for breath. He heard her soft footsteps approaching him and tried to scoot backwards. He landed hard on his ass, knocking the breath from his parched lungs, and found his eyes traveling up Kairi’s naked legs until their eyes finally met.

“Are you alright?” she whispered.

His eyes were so empty, hollow, cold… dead…

Sora looked away from her and dug his fingers into the floor. He nodded.

Kairi was so close to him. He could feel the heat coming off of her body, seeping into his ice-cold skin. Her fingertips, burning hot, ghosted over the top of his head. A shiver ran through him, rattling his teeth and she pulled her hand back quickly. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

The pain stabbed through him again and he made a small sound of agony deep in his chest. 

“What is it?”

His heart thumped unevenly, wildly, shuddering like a broken bird in his chest. The world spun dizzily around him and his empty stomach pitched. He wretched, but his stomach was empty and his entire body was wracked with dry heaves. 

“Riku!” Kairi shouted.

Sora reached out to her. Suddenly, all he could remember was that Kairi was in front of him and that he loved her but she feared him and Riku had taken her from him. She took his hand as he reached and her hot skin sent a shiver through his body. She shuddered, too, and screamed for Riku again.

Riku exploded from the bedroom with his silver hair in disarray. He knelt next to Kairi, prying his fingers from hers and pinning him down.

“Did he hurt you?”

“No, he’s–”

Suddenly, Sora’s entire body seized violently. His chest heaved and his heart beat erratically behind his ribs, thundering wildly. He bit his lip and blood rushed from the corner of his mouth. His head tossed, slamming into the floor with painful sounding thumps. His limbs thrashed wildly.

“He’s having a seizure! Hold his head! Quick, quick, before he hurts himself!” Riku shouted to Kairi and quickly went about pinning Sora down. 

Timidly, she drew his head into her lap and held his head firmly with both hands framing his jaw. His hair was soft on the bare skin of her thighs. His eyes were wide open, but bloodshot and white, rolled up into his head. He thrashed and his blood was cool and sticky against her hand where it was pressed up against the side of his face. 

Then, his joints locked up like stone and he lay impossibly still. 

“Shit, shit, shit!” Riku swore. “I’ve got to call an ambulance! Stay with him!”

“Wait, Riku!” Kairi shrieked, but he was already running to find a phone. 

She was left alone with Sora and his blood was steadily seeping over her bare thighs. 

His body was cold and stiff. He was like a corpse, a ghost, a waif. 

He was dying… 

And it was all her fault.

Finally, there were blue and red lights outside. The EMTs rushed in and took Sora away from her. She staggered to her feet and took a few steps after him, reaching out. Riku caught her in his arms and pressed her tightly to her body. 

“We’ll follow,” Riku said to her. 

One of the police officers approached them, he and Riku exchanged a few words, and then they piled into the backseat of the cruiser. Within moments, they were speeding off through the night to the hospital at top speed. The hospital looked like an asylum in the moonlight, haunted and frightening. It looked like a place to go to die.

“Sora,” Kairi whispered and Riku pretended not to hear the strange emotions in her soft voice.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns?

Review, please!


	8. Bad Luck

No one’s reviewing. :-(

X X X

Kairi drew her legs up against her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and rested her chin on top of her knees. Her ruby-colored hair framed her pale face and her eyes were heavy crimson lashes that were so long the shadowed her face. Her indigo eyes were soft and dark with sorrow and her mouth was turned down at the corners.

Riku walked up to her and held out a cup of something steaming and hot. “Here,” he said. “This will make you feel better.”

“I don’t drink coffee,” she whispered.

“I know. It’s hot chocolate,” he said and pressed the warm Styrofoam cup into her hands. “Drink a little, please.”

She drew the cup behind her knees and held the warmth against her chest. Finally, she took a small sip and swallowed thickly. 

“Where is he?”

“They’re pumping his stomach,” Riku said. 

“Why?”

“The doctor is going to come talk to us in a little while, once he’s out of Intensive Care,” Riku told her and touched her shoulder. “Come on, drink a little more.”

Kairi took another sip of the drink Riku had brought her. It was thick and left a sour taste in her mouth, coating her tongue and teeth. It was like drinking half-clotted blood or burned chocolate. She felt ill and her stomach rolled. 

Riku looked over at her and then looked at his hands. 

The Intensive Care light, glowing blood-red, winked out and the double doors swung open. The doctor stepped out as he was taking off his rubber gloves. He was tall and slender with blonde hair and sapphire blue eyes. His pale skin looked like moonlight coupled with his white lab coat and pale hair. The doctor glanced around the waiting room and then walked over to Kairi and Riku.

“You came in with Sora?” he asked.

Riku stood up and they shook hands. “Yes. I’m Riku and this is Kairi. We’re the closest thing he has to family,” he explained.

“I understand,” the doctor said. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

“I’m alright. I’ll stand,” Riku said. “What happened?”

“Well, we had to pump his stomach. He overdosed on antidepressants and sleeping pills. He almost didn’t make it, but we got to him just in time.” He scrutinized Kairi, who was wearing Riku’s oversized sweatshirt, and Riku, whose green eyes were dark and guilty-looking. “Were you aware that he was depressed?” 

“Sora’s depressed?” Kairi whispered. She had found the antidepressants in his jacket pocket, but she found it hard to believe that the happy-go-lucky Sora she knew was really gone. She turned to look at Riku and asked him, “Sora’s depressed?”

Riku let his breath out in a rush and bit his lip. “Yes, I was aware,” he said softly.

Kairi gasped and tightened her arms around her legs. Her eyes welled up with tears that ran slowly down her cheeks.

“Sora has been depressed for a long time, almost four years,” he looked at Kairi, “since you were taken.” Then, he looked back at the doctor. “I’m his friend, not his wet nurse. There is only so much I can do for him,” Riku said almost bitterly. 

The doctor nodded, but was watching Riku out of the corner of his eye. “Well, aside from the depression, his body is going through a lot of terrible things right now. He’s suffering extreme malnutrition, severe dehydration, and acute exhaustion. When was the last time either of you saw him eating or sleeping?”

Riku glanced at Kairi, but she was staring blankly at the floor. He shook his head. “I… I don’t know. He paces at night, but he’s normally quiet for at least an hour, and I saw him drinking some water before I turned in last night.”

“Well, I gave him a shot of nutritional supplement and we have him on a drip to rehydrate him. I’m going to recommend a new antidepressant for him and a therapist–”

“Sora doesn’t need a therapist,” Riku said flatly.

The doctor glowered at his something fierce. “It’s standard procedure after a suicide attempt–”

“Sora didn’t try to commit suicide,” Riku said flatly.

The doctor looked about to pop a vein and it was a wonder that when Kairi spoke he heard her.

“Can… can we see him?” she whispered.

The doctor looked past Riku to Kairi and then nodded. “Yes, of course,” he said and his voice was suddenly deeply compassionate and kind. “He’s in Room 105 now. Try not to disturb him.”

Kairi nodded and padded quietly in her bare feet past the doctor and went down the hallway he had pointed to. Riku stayed behind and she could feel his eyes burning into her back, but it didn’t matter. Some invisible finger crooked at her and drew her irrevocably down to Room 105. Finally, she was standing in front of the closed door. She knocked hesitantly and then pushed open the door. 

Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of him.

He was a ghost-pale figure, lying on the bed trapped in the snarl of wires and tubes, crushed beneath a heating blanket. He was unconscious, but his brow was furrowed and his mouth was turned down even in forced sleep. The gash in his lip was thick and bloody. His beautiful eyes were sunk deep in his gaunt face and shadowed with black bruises from lack of sleep. His soft brown spikes of hair were spread across the pillows. Stripped of his baggy clothing and stuffed into green hospital scrub-pants, Sora looked thinner than ever. His collarbones were long and sharp, his shoulders chiseled with muscle and bone, his naked chest covered in wires that detected his heartbeat. His hands lay on top of the covers, hooked up, with an IV in both hands. 

Kairi approached him timidly, nervously, as if he would stir just by her mere presence, but he didn’t. She perched on the edge of his bed and gently took his hand in her own. His skin was warm and soft, smooth as silk.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t know…” She laid her palm over the concavity of his empty stomach. “I’ve caused you nothing but pain. I’ve always caused you nothing but pain… I was afraid and I’m sorry.” She put her fingertip on the long line of his naked collarbone and traced it gently. “Sora,” she whispered and this time, his name was not just his name. It was everything to her and she realized the mistake she had been making.

She had been choosing Riku, but Riku had been hurting Sora. It was the greatest betrayal, especially after finding out that Riku had known. He had known all about Sora, but hadn’t chosen to help him. 

Sora’s depression… his dying starving body… his tormented mind… everything about him had needed comfort, but she had only hurt him more. 

Kairi bowed over his body, resting her forehead on his chest. Hot tears coursed down her face and she began to shake with sobs. “Sora,” she whispered and sobbed into his chest, still gripping his hand tightly in her own. 

In his black unconsciousness, something lifted his hand. His palm lay over her back, gently, lightly. It was the faintest butterfly touch. It felt like the first time he had ever touched her. 

Butterflies the size of freight trains took up root in her stomach, fluttering around in her chest. For the very first time, no fear bloomed in her heart. She wasn’t afraid of him, not like this, not when they were both hurting so much. 

She raised her face, looking into his, but his eyes were closed. 

He was still unconscious, but he was reaching out to her. 

Something inside him still wanted to have her close.

Kairi rested her cheek on his chest and gazed up at his sleeping face. The pain had been wiped from his features, smoothing them into the youthful expression she remembered always seeing on his face as they lounged on the beach before all this. 

Smiling to herself, she closed her eyes and remained there, slumped over him and holding his hand. She fell asleep and, for the first time in a long time, she wasn’t plagued by nightmares.

…

When Riku came to the room, he saw Kairi laying with Sora, holding his hand and looking adoringly up into his face. He knew he had lost her to Sora again and bitterness took up space in his heart. Not for the first time, he hated Sora. He had hated Sora for taking the Key Blade, which rightfully belonged to Riku. He hated Sora for taking Kairi, for loving her enough to sacrifice himself for her. He hated Sora for saving him, for being so wonderful and never giving up on him. Not for the first time, he hated Sora with his entire being.

…

The morning dawned rather damp and dewy. The birds were chirping outside, flitting in the sunlight, and catching the mucky worms. There was a beautiful sunrise in the east, spilling vibrant colors over cotton candy puffs of pearl-white clouds. The ocean was beautiful blue and filled with life. It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day.

Sora tried to open his eyes, but his lids felt heavy and stiff. The last thing he remembered was the pain in his stomach, the crippling pain, and Kairi. What had happened after that was a blur of light and sound and then pitch-black darkness. Finally, he eased his eyes open and took in his surroundings. 

He was in a hospital–white walls, ugly curtains, antiseptic smell, no doubt about it. Countless needles were beneath his skin and wires were all over him. He shuddered and tried to pull them off, but something held him down. For one horrible moment, he feared he had been restrained, but then there was a soft sound and a curtain of ruby-colored hair.

It was Kairi. 

Kairi was sleeping on top of him and holding his hand.

She was still wearing Riku’s clothing, still marked with Riku’s scent, but Sora was not greedy. She was here with him now and that was all that mattered. 

“Kai,” he croaked.

She jolted bolt upright, still gripping his hand, and looked immediately into his face. Her beautiful eyes filled with tears and for a moment, he feared he had done something wrong. But then she threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

He pressed her close to him with one hand and buried his face in her hair. “I already said you never have to apologize to me… not to me,” he whispered. 

“But, you were hurting and I… I made it worse!”

“You didn’t know,” he whispered.

“But I found the pills in your jacket. I just… didn’t think…” she sobbed into his neck and he felt her tears soaking into his skin. “I always thought you were so strong. I didn’t think you could ever be hurt. I was so stupid!”

He wrapped his other arm around her, holding her tightly, as if he wanted to take her heart back into himself. Her hair was tickling his face and her body was all bones and hard angles against his. He knew she felt his bones, too.

They were like two pieces of a shattered puzzle.

“No,” he whispered. “You were afraid and rightly so…”

She pulled back and looked into his eyes, his empty eyes. “You saved me. You’ve always saved me, but I always make things harder on you,” she whispered. “I’m bad luck…”

“No. All these terrible things always happen around me. You probably would have been safe… if you had never known me…”

She shook her head and buried her face into his throat again. His pulse was strong and even against her cheek. He felt so warm and alive, a far cry from the cold stiff body she had held in her arms on the ship last night. 

She thought of his apology, how she had told him NO, and torn him apart. She thought of how she had suffered in Dominic’s hands, always dreaming of him, hoping he and Riku would come for her. No matter how badly she had wanted them both to save her, it was always Sora’s beautiful cerulean eyes that she dreamed of. 

“No,” she whispered. “I would always have wanted to know you.”

Sora hugged her tightly to him and inhaled the scent of Riku mingling with her natural scent. His two most precious friends… 

But Sora had always had too much room in his heart…

X X X

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Questions, comments, concerns?


	9. The Arrow's Message

I get to leave for vacation soon! I’ll be gone from around the 18 to the 24, so no updates during those days. 

Boo-hoo!

X X X

After Sora was released from the hospital, Kairi seemed reluctant to touch him again. He couldn’t really blame her, though. She had been to Hell and back. She didn’t talk to Riku and she didn’t talk to him. The only words she seemed to speak were their names, always said with such meaningful inflection that they understood her immediately. 

When he was sliding into hospital-issued garb to go home in, as they had cut his clothing apart in their haste, Kairi had sat quietly. She kept her eyes closed, but he could see her pulse racing in her slender throat. It appeared that even the thought of his naked skin in proximity to her disturbed her. But she hadn’t left the room. That she had stayed was enough for Sora.

He wasn’t greedy.

Outside, in the warm balmy day, he had caught the first glimpse of the scars on her. Accidentally, when she was pulling off Riku’s sweatshirt because it was far warmer outside than in the Gummi-ship or the air conditioned hospital, Sora had seen her t-shirt lift and expose the skin of her back. She had been beaten within an inch of her life. The wounds from the whip had healed with fresh new skin, but left thick ugly red scars. 

Surely, there were even crueler and uglier scars on her heart and soul, never mind her beaten body. Just the way she feared him and refused to touch him, he who she had thrown herself into danger just to find, showed that. 

It was a miracle she could even stand to brush her shoulder against his as they walked back to the Gummi-ship with Riku. If Sora had been in her position, he would have kept a ten foot bubble between himself and everyone around him. He might not even have trusted his old friends, especially if one of them was unstable like he was.

Before all this, he had been sure Kairi loved him or at least cared for him with something that was so similar to love. Now, he wasn’t sure anymore. 

But he loved her, God, he had always loved her.

Ultimately, if she loved him again, that would be her choice. He could be expected to do everything he could to make her love him again, but he wouldn’t force her. Even if she fell in love with Riku, he would be happy for her in his own broken way. Just so long as she gave him her support, her friendship, a smile, he could go on. 

“Kai,” he murmured. 

She turned to look at him, looking into the eyes like glass marbles. Something was still bothering Sora, preventing his eyes from filling with emotion again, but he was acting like nothing was wrong, like everything was okay. She twirled a strand of hair around her finger shyly.

Riku made a small sound in his throat.

“Sora…”

Then, something slammed into Sora from behind. He pitched forward, hands going out to break his fall before his face smashed into the pavement. His wrists made an unpleasant cracking noise and his unused muscles screamed in agony. Then, a new pain flooded through him.

Kairi screamed.

Sora bit down hard on his lip. She was already screaming and she didn’t need to hear his pain. “W-what is it?” he forced out.

“It’s an arrow,” Riku said plainly. He was scanning the trees, searching for their assailant. “Whoever shot you is long gone now.”

Sora dug his fingers into the dirt and tried not to breathe because each breath sent a stab of red-hot pain through his body. Kairi dropped to her knees at his side, but did not touch him. Her presence was enough, though barely enough. “Ugh, the arrow… Can somebody pull it out?” Sora gasped.

Riku crouched down beside him and fished his hand between Sora’s chest and the ground. The arrow had gone through his body, Sora realized, when Riku’s fingers found the iron head and gave it a small twist. He hissed in agony.

“No good,” Riku said. “We have to cut it before we can get it out. You’ll have to make it back to the ship. Can you stand?”

Sora bit his lip and pushed himself onto his knees. The sight of his chest all soaked in blood with the shaft of the arrow protruding from beneath his collarbone made his head spin. He swayed dizzily and put his out on nothing to steady himself. Kairi took his hand, held it tightly, steadied him.

“Sora?”

“I’m alright,” he hissed and allowed her and Riku to drag him to his feet. He reached out to his friends, but only Kairi touched him.

She looked to Riku and said his name in such a way that it made him turn and look at her. 

There was some unknown combination of emotions in his green eyes. “I’m going to scout ahead, clear the way,” he said to her. In reality, he just didn’t want to touch Sora and he didn’t want to see Kairi helping him. Sora had taken everything from Riku. He deserved to suffer.

Kairi sensed a change in Riku, but Sora smiled beautifully and said, “That’s a good idea. Thank you, Riku.”

Riku turned away. His footsteps sounded terribly loud and harsh. 

“Kai,” Sora said timidly, still resting on his knees and looking everywhere but her and the protruding arrow. “Do you think… you could help me…?” There was something in his voice, something that really did think she would turn him away, but Kairi put his arm over her shoulders and stood up slowly. Sora was strong and he had walked on his own through worse injuries, but between the malnutrition and exhaustion and having his stomach pumped, he just… couldn’t.

He could feel Kairi trembling against him and didn’t put any weight on her, just used her like a rock on which to balance himself. She put her other arm around his waist and he heard her gasp at the thinness of his body. He didn’t want to tell her that her shoulders felt as thin and brittle as the wings of birds. 

They walked slowly, quietly. 

Then, finally, the Gummi-ship was in view. The door was open. Riku was waiting inside somewhere.

Sora felt a little faint at the thought of having the arrow yanked from his body, but tried not to show it. He and Kairi continued slowly into the airship and she helped him ease onto one of the couches in the common room. 

“Thank you, Kai,” Sora said. 

She said nothing, but smiled at him softly in a way that made all the pain fade from his body.

Riku had pliers and clippers in his hand when he came to stand in front of Sora. He pushed Kairi back and she hesitantly sat down beside Sora, but did not touch him. Sora bit his lip. He really wanted to just hold her hand, feel her skin on his, anything to distract him from this, but…

Riku got the clippers and chopped the shaft of the arrow off behind Sora’s back, removing the feathers. Then, he put the pliers behind the head of the arrow and tugged lightly. Sora made a small yelp of pain and tug his teeth into the split on his lip. Riku had to hide his bitter smile. Sora deserved this and more for what he had done. 

Sora had never been shot before. Sure, he had been slashed and cut and clubbed. Strange things had hit him on the head throughout his adventures. He had broken bones and reset them himself. He liked to think he had been through a lot, that he was tough, but as Riku started pulling out that arrow, he could have cried. 

It hurt so badly. 

Every splintering wood fiber ripped and tore at the muscles inside his body and thinking about it only made his muscles tense in anticipation of the pain. Blood was flaming hot down his chest, burning through his skin. Riku was pulling on it so slowly, so slowly, like he wanted to prolong this.

“J-just… pull it out!” Sora gasped and dug his fingers into the couch. He gasped and yelped in agony, but Riku continued pulling at the same speed.

Suddenly, Riku twisted the arrow in Sora’s chest and stopped pulling it straight out. He pulled it sideways and the pain that reared through Sora almost made him black out.

“Riku?” Kairi whispered because Sora was gasping and whimpering in anguish. 

“There’s something on the arrow. We can’t let it get stuck in Sora,” Riku said. 

All the color had drained from Sora’s face. He was ghost-pale, dead-pale, and bloodless, except for the rush of crimson from his wounded mouth. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut, but his lashes were starred with tears. Kairi put her hand on Sora’s leg, gently, timidly, just offering support by touching him. He put his hand over hers and his fingers dug into her. She winced, but held. Something in her touch appeared to soothe him, because he forcibly relaxed the muscles in his chest and took a shallow breath.

It was then that Riku realized just how deep their love ran, just how perfectly they were made for each other. He still wanted to blame Sora for taking her, but he… couldn’t. They were destined to be together, intertwined together forever. 

That was why Sora just couldn’t live without her…

Riku wanted her.

Sora needed her.

Ultimately, it would be Kairi’s decision.

Finally, Riku straightened out and jerked the arrow out in one solid yank. A geyser of blood followed the arrow’s removal and Riku quickly slammed his hand over it, pushing Sora back against the couch cushions. He put the arrow into Kairi’s hands, shoved his other hand behind Sora’s back, and pressed down solidly to staunch the flow of blood.

“Wait,” Sora gasped. “You said there was something on the arrow…”

“No, you wait! Let’s get you bandaged up. You’re bleeding all over the place,” Riku said sternly. 

Sora yelped in pain as Riku pressed harder. 

Kairi went to the bathroom to get the First Aid kit and then returned to Sora’s side. She took out a needle and expertly threaded it before Riku could even tell her what he needed. Then, she gently pushed Riku’s hand from Sora’s chest, replacing it with her cool fingers. She cut the plain hospital-issued t-shirt from his frame and got a closer look at the wound. The blood was reduced to a trickle and she slipped the needle through the edges of his torn flesh, pulling it neatly taut. Sora hissed, but did not fight her as he might have fought Riku about stitches. Within minutes, she was sewn the wound shut into a puckered little mess of torn flesh. Then, she did the same for Sora’s back. Finally, she taped clean gauze over the wounds, put everything away, and sat back.

“Now?” Sora whispered. His voice was small and hoarse. “The arrow?”

Kairi handed it to him and leaned hesitantly over his shoulder to look. Riku peeked in as well, eagerly, but nervously. He and Sora both knew who it might be from. Around the shaft of the arrow, there was a tightly rolled piece of paper then covered in plastic to keep the blood from soaking into the paper and obscuring the message. Sora pulled the entire thing off the cut end of the arrow and unrolled the paper. The edges were stained red with his blood, but the message was still readable.

_I could’ve shot the bitch, Key Bearer, but that wouldn’t be as much fun. Would it?_

_You can give her up and spare yourself this or continue to suffer for my worthless prostitute._

_It’s your choice._

Dominic had made his first move.

X X X

Dun dun dun. 

Reviews please!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	10. Nightmares and Dreams

I wasn’t making Riku the bad guy. (That’s Dominic’s job, what with him being evil and all.) Riku was just kind of having a pity-party chapter. If I were him, I’d be a little pissed off, too. After all, he was supposed to get the Key Blade and with that Kairi, but Sora got them both. For a little while, Kairi wanted to be with him. He was on top of the world and Sora was in the flood plains. Now, Sora’s got the girl again. So, Riku’s not evil, just angry. 

He should get over it. Don’t worry.

Sora on the other hand… it’s just too much fun to make him angsty!

X X X

There were no words to accurately describe the way Kairi reacted to Dominic’s threat. Her coral-pink lips parted, but no sound came out. Her beautiful indigo eyes filled with tears and she looked up from the paper stained with Sora’s blood into Sora’s glass marble gaze. Sora was already looking at her and their eyes met. As a result, Sora was looking right into her when her heart fell apart. She dug her fingers into her thigh, still bare, still clad in Sora’s boxers and Riku’s t-shirt, and viciously tore away the skin.

Sora grabbed her hands and threw himself over her, pinning her hands to the sofa cushions. 

Riku seized Sora’s shoulders and dragged him backwards. Riku was shouting, but Sora didn’t understand why for a long moment. Then, he realized that Kairi’s mouth was open and no sound was coming out of her, but… her scream was coming out of Sora.

Sora tried to stop the cry from escaping him, but he couldn’t. It was never-ending, a sound like his heart was breaking into a million pieces. He continued holding Kairi down, pinning her wrists with his hands and her chest with his. Her open mouth was against the side of his face, moist breath panting against his cheek. Her teeth nipped his flesh, but didn’t break it. 

“Sora! What the fuck? Stop screaming!” Riku shouted and jerked him back by his shoulders. Sora’s knife-sharp protruding shoulder blades slammed into Riku’s chest, knocking the wind out of his lungs. 

Kairi followed Sora’s motion, both restrained by him and drawn to him. She wasn’t fighting Sora’s hold, more trying to escape him so that she could go back to tearing apart her body and desperately asking him to stop her at the same time. Sora was still howling her terror and pain.

Finally, Riku reached around Sora and put his hand over Kairi’s open mouth. 

Immediately, Sora’s screaming stopped. 

For a long moment, Sora stayed like that, restraining Kairi and gasping for the breath he had lost screaming. Riku’s hand over Kairi’s mouth forced her head back against the cushions and Sora’s hands had her arms pinned. Unable to move, with her legs parted by Sora’s narrow hips, Kairi just stared up at him with those eyes of hers. 

“Kai,” Sora whispered. “Riku and I are here this time. We’re going to protect you. He will never touch you again.”

Kairi tossed her head and Riku hesitantly removed his hand from her mouth, bracing himself for Sora to begin screaming for her again. 

But neither Kairi nor Sora began to howl. 

Kairi’s voice was soft and full of shame. “It’s my fault…”

Sora released one of her wrists, but she did not return to clawing at her thighs. She only put her hand to her mouth and stifled a sob. With his free hand, he cupped the side of her face, putting his thumb under her jaw. 

“What?” he whispered.

“It’s my fault… you’re hurt.”

“No,” Sora soothed. 

“He used me…”

“We’re going to protect you.”

She was silent for a long moment, then, finally, whispered, “Why?”

Sora leaned towards her and she pressed backwards into the cushions, but he did not hurt her. It was Sora, safe and wonderful Sora. He pressed his cheek against hers and his skin was cool and soft. His lips gently touched her ear as he spoke, whispering his greatest secret, “Because… you are precious to me.”

Kairi collapsed into sobs, clutching her body tightly with her hands and folding in on herself. Sora sat back, chest heaving and some blood spotting the white gauze. His back pressed against Riku’s chest and Riku was still gripping his shoulders.

“What did you tell her?” Riku asked.

“Nothing,” Sora whispered.

“She’s crying.”

“It’s alright.”

“Sora, God damn it. If you want me to trust you–”

Sora’s eyes snapped to Riku’s face and the empty gaze unnerved him. “You don’t trust me?”

Riku shook his head. “No, not after everything you’ve been going through. You’re unstable. If you want me to trust you, and I’m going to have to if we want to protect Kairi from this bastard, you have to start telling me things again.”

Sora lowered his eyes and fisted his cut shirt in his hands. “I’m sorry, Riku,” Sora whispered. “I’ve put you through Hell these years, but you’ve always stayed by me. I’m sorry.”

Riku sighed heavily. “It’s alright, but let’s try to have some change, alright?”

Sora nodded.

Riku stood up. “I say we put Kairi in your room again. It has no windows and, if we sit out here, no one can get to her without our seeing them. We’ll stay with her constantly. He won’t get by us and he won’t take her back. Things like sleeping and showering we can do in shifts.”

Sora nodded. “Yes.”

Then, he looked down at Kairi, sobbing into her hands and all curled around herself. He brushed a lock of ruby-colored hair damp with her tears from her cheek and she flinched beneath his touch. Sora put his hands back into his lap, stared at them for a long moment, and then stood up. 

He picked up both pieces of the arrow and the blood-stained message and went to the kitchen sink. Cupping the objects in his bare palms, he muttered a small spell and set them aflame. When they were only ashes, he tossed them into the trash and returned to the couch where he pressed his grey ash-covered hand over the wound in his chest.

“It hurts, Riku,” he whispered.

Riku nodded. “I’m going to put Kairi in your room.”

Sora nodded and his cerulean eyes rolled back in his head. Then, he passed out into an exhausted sleep right there. Riku lifted Kairi, cradling her against him, and she neither whimpered nor struggled against him. He laid her down in Sora’s bed and covered her neatly with the quilt. Then, he went to his room, took the spare blanket off the cot, and brought it back out to the common room. There, he covered Sora as well, closed up the ship, and sat down to await Dominic’s next move.

…

It was late and the wind was howling outside the windows. The ship rocked soothingly, gently.

Sora was snoring softly, a testimony to just how exhausted he was. His soft snores were annoying enough to make Riku want to get up and smother the young man in his sleep. Occasionally, Sora restlessly rolled over and shifted on the sofa. 

Down the hall, he could hear Kairi crying out in her sleep, whimpering and sobbing and sporadically crying out Sora’s name with fear and hope and desperation, and those small sounds were enough to make him want to scream. 

But the noises kept him from falling asleep on his watch. 

At midnight, suddenly, Sora woke up. His eyes snapped open and he sat up like a puppet whose strings had been yanked. “Riku?” he called out in the darkness. There was something in his voice, darkness and fear. “Riku!”

“What is it, Sora?” Riku said finally. 

“Are you angry?” Sora asked abruptly.

“What?” Shock drove a finger of ice down Riku’s spine.

“Do you hate?” 

“What are you getting at?”

“Do you despise?”

“Sora, what the hell kind of questions are these? Are you still asleep?”

Sora slowly shook his head, blue eyes dark and lifeless. “I had a dream… You killed me. I couldn’t fight back. I couldn’t fight you.”

“Why would I kill you?”

“Because of Kairi… because you wanted her and I was in the way,” Sora whispered and gripped the blanket in his long fingers. “But, she saw you kill me. She watched me die and she wouldn’t have you.”

“Sora, stop it. It was only a dream.”

“You took her. You raped her and you killed her while you were inside of her…”

Riku rose from the chair he had been sitting in, closed the space between him and Sora, grabbed Sora’s shoulders, and slammed him back into the couch cushions. Immediately, Sora had his Key Blade in his hand and it pressed against Riku’s throat. 

Riku raised his hands in surrender instantly and tried to meet Sora’s eyes, but there was nothing in them… just empty glass orbs.

“Do not use that force against me,” Sora whispered. Then, the Key Blade clattered from his hands and spun across the floor. Sora hit his knees and stayed there. 

Riku edged around him, kicked the blade out of reach, and drew a cold glass of water from the kitchen sink. There was still some ash in it. He drained the glass in one long swallow and looked back at Sora’s slumped figure.

“Sora, you have to stop being this way. It was only a dream,” Riku said. “You know I wouldn’t hurt her and I wouldn’t–” he couldn’t finish that sentence as his looked at the ash in the sink. He had tried to hurt Sora and he had succeeded, not that Sora knew it. The words he forced out left a bile-bitter taste in his mouth. “–I wouldn’t hurt you.”

Sora nodded. “I know and I’m sorry, but it was so real.”

Riku nodded, filled another glass with water, and spiked it with vodka. This glass he gave to Sora and ordered him to drink it. Sora’s eyes sparked with color and he choked, gasping and heaving. Sora hated the taste of alcohol. Riku used to love watching the look on his face whenever he tasted it and now he couldn’t help but smile.

“Vodka?” Sora gasped. 

Riku nodded and then said, “Do you trust me, Sora?”

“Yes,” Sora said. “But you do not trust me, Riku…”

“This is why, Sora. You just can’t be trusted.”

Sora made a small sound in his chest.

Riku sighed heavily. “Sora…”

“I’m sorry, Riku, but…”

Riku waited. 

“I can’t stop being this way. Something inside me is… broken… and until it heals…” Riku knew he was trying so hard, doing everything in his power to be trustworthy again because he wanted to save Kairi. “I don’t know if I can stop… I want to, but I can’t…” Sora whispered. “The things I dream at night, Riku, you can’t even understand what it’s like. I just can’t escape these things, even now that Kairi is back.”

This was the closest Sora had ever come to talking about the things that plagued him at night and Riku knew he had to act on it. 

It was now or never. 

“What?” Riku prodded. He didn’t want to ask something specific and have Sora snap out of it.

Sora hid his face in his hands and made a sound of despair. “I’m sorry I do this to you, Riku. I really am,” he whispered.

Riku sighed. “It’s alright, Sora. I’m your friend and I’m here for you.”

Sora didn’t get up. He simply slumped over sideways and spread himself out across the floor. The glass of water spiked with Vodka was barely touched at Sora’s elbow, shimmering like a silver fish in the moonlight. 

Riku sighed heavily and once again draped the quilt over Sora. Then, he sat down on the sofa and continued his watch.

X X X

I’d still love reviews. Only Anime Lover Bebe is reviewing regularly. Come on people, feedback is nice!

Questions, comments, concerns?


	11. The Shattered Battle

Yay!

X X X

Kairi got up the next morning looking tousled and pained. Her indigo eyes were shadowed and she was biting her lip. Her long red hair was snarled around her pale pretty face. Her thighs were torn up, scratched apart by her own fingernails, in long bloody lines from knee to where her flesh was covered by Sora’s boxers. She looked small and thin.

She looked like Sora.

Riku was in the shower and Sora had taken over the watch. He was sitting on the couch, his face in his long-fingered hands, dressed in clean clothes with his soaked hair plastered to his scalp. He didn’t look like himself in his usual wild shorts and a plain black tank top with his hair not sticking up in spikes around his head. For one or two heartbeats, Kairi didn’t recognized him and she almost screamed, but then he looked up at her with those cerulean blue eyes and she let her breath out in a rush.

“Sora,” she whispered. “Your hair…” She giggled faintly when his hand lifted to the top of his head and combed experimentally through the damp locks. A few wispy hairs attempted to spike, but the water held them down. “It’s flat,” she said with a small laugh.

Sora smiled at her and chuckled. 

When their laughter died, Kairi hesitantly went to sit beside Sora on the couch. Her weight barely shifted the cushions. 

His profile was noble and sad. His full lips had a wonderful devilish curl and there was a small cleft in his chin. His beautiful cerulean eyes were fringed with lashes so long they shadowed his face. His throat was slender, pulse hammering in the blue jugular vein. His shoulders, bare and strong, were lightly freckled like his wrists. 

He was so handsome. 

She could feel the heat coming off of Sora’s body. 

Kairi shivered.

“What’s wrong? Are you cold?” he asked.

“No, I’m fine,” she said and stood up.

Sora grabbed her hand, held it tightly, until she turned to look at him. The glass marble gaze was gone like it never was. His eyes were so full of despair and desperation and something else she dared not hope for as she stared at him.

“Please, Kai, don’t push me away,” he begged. And he really did beg. He hadn’t begged since he got down on his hands and knees and pleaded with Saïx to let him see her. He was never above begging, not for her. “Please…”

Kairi pulled her hand away and Sora allowed her to. He lowered his face, wet hair hanging in his eyes, dripping water like tears. 

“Sora,” she whispered. “It’s not that…”

“What is it then? Please…”

“Sora, I’m… I… I don’t… deserve you.”

She gasped when Sora reached out, wrapped his arms around her waist, and pulled her to him. He rested his cheek on her stomach and closed his eyes. She felt his nervous breath on her thighs and a shiver went through her. She put her hands on his strong thin shoulders, feeling the muscles bunch and ripple at her touch. 

“It’s just the opposite, Kai,” he whispered. “You deserve so much better, but I…”

She threaded her fingers through his hair and ran them down the back of his neck. He shuddered, fingers digging into her lower back, and he inhaled deeply. 

“What…?” she croaked.

“I know it’s wrong, but I need you, Kai. I really need you,” Sora confessed. 

She sucked in her breath, shivering with shock.

“I’d do anything for you,” he whispered. “I know I’m a horrible person, but…”

“Sora, stop.” Riku’s voice was sharp, cutting through them both like a knife.

Sora jolted and pulled back, staring at his feet, ashamed. Kairi could only stand there in front of him with her hands resting on his shoulders. Slowly, she turned her head and looked at Riku. He was glistening with water, half-dry. There was a towel low-slung around his hips, displaying the rest of his body for her frightened eyes. Kairi slammed her eyes back onto Sora, examining the individual strands of his wet brown hair at it began to dry and spike up again.

“You have to stop being this way,” he said sharply.

“I’m sorry,” Sora whispered.

Kairi removed her hands and took a step back. Sora’s fingers twitched and he leaned forward as if pursuing her. 

“Take a breather, you two,” Riku said. “Stop being so depressing. You’re sucking the life out of me.” He walked towards his room. “Why don’t you go for a walk or something?”

“But, that bastard is out there, just waiting for us,” Sora said desperately. 

“We can’t hide in here forever. Besides, it’s pretty early. The chances of anyone other than us being up are slim,” Riku said and shooed them. “Go ahead. Get out of here.”

Sora stood up and nervously shuffled towards the door. Kairi looked desperately from Sora to Riku. 

“It’s okay, Kairi. Sora will protect you,” Riku said and smiled. They were half out the door when Riku suddenly shouted, “Wait!” 

Sora whirled around, cerulean eyes wild and scanning for any threats. Kairi had her arms wrapped around herself, shivering.

Riku shook his head. “Try to take it down a notch, okay? And Kairi, put on a jacket.” Content that his duties were through, he ducked into his room after watching Sora collect his jacket for Kairi from the back of one of the kitchen chairs. 

Who’d of thunk it? Riku, a mother hen.

Riku heaved in a deep breath and leaned against the door. He heard the Gummi-ship door open and close and then the ship was blessedly silent. After Sora’s snoring and Kairi’s whimpers, the silence was a welcome change.

…

The morning sun hadn’t yet broken over the rim of the ocean. The sky was light at the edges and speckled with diamond-bright stars. There was a faint breeze scented with blossoms and sea salt blowing through the high palms and the fronds rustled like fans. The ocean was sparkling like a sapphire, waves lapping against the pearl-white sands, bringing in jewel-colored shells. In the distance, dolphins leaped and danced. 

Riku had been right. No one was out on the street and no one was lurking in the jungle though Sora scanned the foliage with dedication. 

Kairi clutched Sora’s jacket tightly around her shoulders and stared at her feet as she walked. She had been barefoot when they rescued her, but Selphie had lent her a pair of flip-flops as both Sora and Riku had huge feet.

“Kai,” Sora whispered. “Did you miss the island?”

She looked out over the dark star-speckled ocean and a soft smile graced her beautiful face. “Yes. I hated the desert,” she confessed. “I dreamed about the ocean and…” She glanced over at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. “And I dreamed of cerulean blue eyes.”

His shoulders jerked and he looked quickly into her face. His beautiful eyes were lit with insecurities. “My eyes…?” he whispered.

She nodded hesitantly. 

He reached for her hand, threading their fingers together, and she gripped him tightly for a moment. They walked close together, shoulders brushing. Then, they reached the boardwalk. Sora jumped down into the sand and turned around, stretching out his arms for Kairi. She put her hands in his, gripping his wrists, and he gently lifted her down to stand beside him in the cool sand. They stood like that, not hugging, just standing close together, sharing heat. 

“You dreamed of me?”

She nodded and watched Sora’s throat working furiously. After a long moment, Sora shook his head and took a few steps back from Kairi. She gripped his hand, but he did not pull away from him. He crouched down, pulled off his shoes, picked them up with his free hand, and waited for her to do the same. Then, they strolled the beautiful beach together.  
It was like their childhood, before anyone was taken, before weapons became everyday life, before Heartless were all Sora thought about, before darkness came…

Kairi stopped, tugged gently on Sora’s hand, and then sat down in the sand. “Can we watch the sun come up, please?”

“Of course,” he said and sat down beside her. 

She buried her toes in the sand, watching the waves break closer and closer to them as the tide came in. Sora’s legs were longer and the water was lapping at his ankles long before it touched her. His face was beautifully lit by the rising sun, reflecting in his cerulean eyes. Kairi gazed at him, no longer even noticing the beautiful scene stretching out before her. 

All she saw was Sora.

She didn’t even realize that she was leaning towards him until she felt the softness of his skin on the tip of her nose. She was startled, but she didn’t pull back.

“What are you doing to me, Kai?” Sora whispered. 

She didn’t know what to say, but her mouth was already ahead of her brain. “Touching you,” she whispered.

“Why?” he shuddered.

“I like touching you…” Kairi said softly, her breath tickling his cheek. 

Sora put his hand on her naked knee and she pulled her legs away, curling them up beside her body. “But,” he whispered, “You don’t like it when I touch you.”

Kairi pressed into him. “No, Sora. I’m just afraid…”

“Of me?”

“No,” she said. “I was a prostitute. I feel… dirty and I’m afraid suddenly my life is going to return to that.”

“I’m here to protect you,” Sora said. 

“I know,” she said, “but I’m afraid.”

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and held her against him. “Is it alright for me to touch you like this?”

She nodded and leaned into him. Her cheek pressed against his, warm and soft. 

“Kai, I–” Sora began, but the harsh sound of clapping cut him off.

“What a lovely little scene this is. Are you happy to be home, Red? Whoring yourself out still, it seems?” Dominic’s voice sliced through Kairi like a razor through her heart. Red-hot fear gushed like blood through her chest form her split heart. 

Sora leaped to his feet, Key Blade already in his hands. 

Kairi got up as well, huddling behind him.

Dominic looked powerful and evil. His face, browned from the desert sun and absently handsome, was twisted with a mean smile. “Well, Key Bearer, have you made your decision?”

Sora’s lips pulled back over his teeth and Kairi whimpered behind him. “You will never touch Kai again,” Sora snarled. 

“How cute. You even have the same pet name for our little slut. Maybe we could share her,” Dominic said and laughed. “Would you like that, Key Bearer? You can have choice of holes.”

“I will not let you touch her ever again, you bastard,” Sora hissed. He swiped at Dominic with his Key Blade. “Get back!” He took a step back, feet sinking into the soft sand when the waves rushed up. Kairi’s shivering body was pressing against his back. “Step back or I’ll kill you.”

Dominic actually looked a little concerned with Sora’s threat. Surely he was remembering Sora attacking him in the brothel, recalling the Key Blade at his throat and Riku slamming into Sora with enough force to smash his friend’s head off the counter. 

Sora was not a force to be reckoned with. 

Behind them, the sun came up, blindingly bright. Unable to see, Dominic stumbled back and Sora, whose back was to the sun, leaped at him. They collided and Sora easily pinned Dominic down. He had his knee in the middle of Dominic’s chest, crushing down on his sternum with the Key Blade jammed under his chin.

“I should split your head like a piece of overripe fruit,” Sora snarled.

Dominic made a choking sound in his throat. His eyes bulged, veins popping out of his face. 

This time, Riku wasn’t here to stop Sora. And if Riku—who had always been stronger than Sora, was barely able to contain Sora’s blinding power—was barely a challenge, then what fight could Dominic—the useless lumpy owner of a desert brothel who got most of his exercise beating and raping girls—pose?

Kairi was frozen in terror. 

Sora shoved the blade beneath Dominic’s jaw and there was an unpleasant cracking sound. Then, suddenly, Sora got up from Dominic and the brothel owner started to scramble to his feet, but Sora never gave him a chance. In a shower of blood and gore, Sora clubbed Dominic in the face with the teeth of his Key Blade. Blood spattered Sora’s face and chest and several bones erupted from Dominic’s split flesh. 

One hit wasn’t enough for Sora.

He clubbed Dominic’s face and torso over and over, endlessly beating the man’s body into a bloody pulp. 

“Sora,” Kairi sobbed, but he didn’t hear her.

When Riku came searching for them almost an hour later, Sora was still beating Dominic’s corpse and Kairi was rolled up into a tight sobbing ball with the cold surf lapping at her back.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	12. What He Wants, What He Needs

Yawn. I’m so tired. I’m trying to adjust my stupid sleeping pattern so I get up early and fall asleep early for vacation. It’s working a little too well. Yawn.

X X X

Everything happened in a blur of pieces and flashes… 

Little things, big things, screaming, yelling, blood… 

There was blood everywhere, all over the white sand, all over Sora.

Sora was silently hitting him, over and over and over, pounding the teeth of his Key Blade into Dominic’s face. The only sound he made was a small grunt as he moved, surely expressing the pain from the wound where he had been shot earlier.

Riku got his arms around Sora’s waist, heaved him off Dominic, and nothing short of threw him. Sora hit the sand, rolled, and crashed into the ice-cold surf. Sputtering and hacking, he crawled from the wreckage of the blood-stained ocean on his hands and knees. The blood on his face mingled with the salt water like tears and ran down his face. 

Then, Riku rushed to Kairi, got his arms around her, pressed her trembling body against his side, and held her there tightly while he looked down on Sora. 

Finally, Sora staggered out of the surf and hit his knees in the sand at Riku’s feet.

“You killed him,” Riku said flatly and the look on Sora’s face clearly said he had no idea what had happened. Then, he saw Dominic’s corpse lying there behind Riku on the sand and he went pale. Dominic was unrecognizable, just a lump of bloody battered flesh from his shoulders up. Sora’s eyes darted to his Key Blade, as splattered in gore and blood. 

“I did…?”

Riku nodded and grabbed Sora by his upper arm with the hand that wasn’t pressing Kairi close to his side. Hoisting the young man to his feet, he snapped, “Get that weapon and let’s go. Now I’ve got to call the police and tell them we’ve got the bastard.” 

“But, I killed him…” Sora whispered, dragging his feet through the sand so that Riku was practically dragging him. 

“That doesn’t matter. Jesus, Sora, you’re the Key Bearer. You’ve got what… diplomatic immunity?” Riku heaved them both onto the board walk and set Kairi down on her feet. She gripped his shoulder tightly in her white-knuckled fingers.

“But… self-defense…?”

“It might have been self-defense the first time you hit him, but not the nine millionth.”

Sora shuddered.

Riku pried Kairi’s fingers from his skin and said gently, “You’ve got to walk, Kairi, okay?”

She nodded and took a few wobbly little steps. She had no shoes now, having left them back where she and Sora had been attacked. Sora’s feet were also bare, but Riku didn’t really care. He gripped Sora by his upper arms, heaving him upright, and shaking him violently.

“No, don’t…” Kairi whispered, but neither of them heard her.

“Snap out of it, Sora. I need you to get it together,” Riku growled at his friend.

Sora blinked at Riku, looked down where his Key Blade was hanging from his hand all covered in blood, and then glanced over at Kairi. She was clutching his jacket, holding it tightly around her shoulders. There was a smear of blood on her cheek. 

“Alright, I’m going to deal with this. Sora, I want you to go back to the Gummi-ship and put in a call to your King Mickey. See if he can interfere to keep you out of prison for beating this guy into a pulp. Kairi, you’re going to stay with me and we are going to the police station. Okay?”

Sora nodded and sheathed the Key Blade back into his body. Kairi stared at his retreating figure as he headed back for the ship. He looked dark, like a Heartless–head bowed, dark hair spiking wildly, his body covered in blood. 

Then, Riku put his arm around her shoulders and hugged her tightly. “Are you alright?”

She nodded and swayed dizzily on her feet.

“He didn’t hurt you?”

She shook her head, tears pricking in her eyes.

“Alright, good. Let’s go,” Riku said and led her away from the board walk towards the police station. 

…

Sora didn’t call King Mickey when he arrived back at the Gummi-ship. He stripped off his clothes as he walked through the ship, leaving a trailed of blood. Finally, he reached the bathroom, smearing blood on the knob as he opened the door. He started the shower and stepped in, watching the thick crimson gore swirl away down the drain. 

He scrubbed his skin, digging at the patches of dried blood with his fingernails and tearing his soft moist skin apart. He dug his fingers through his hair, scrubbed his scalp. He scoured his body until it ached. Finally, skin burning and pink, he shut off the water and stepped out. For a long moment, he stood—drip drying—on the rug and staring at the smudge of his body reflecting on the steamy mirror. Exhausted and nauseous, he picked up a fluffy towel and wrapped it around his sharp hips.

Then, he pulled opened the bathroom door only to be startled by the figure standing directing outside the door, so close that he almost slammed into it. Stumbling backwards, the sharp corner of the vanity dug into his lower back, drilling his spine. His legs felt a little weak and he had to grip the vanity to remain on his feet.

“No…” he whispered.

Kairi stepped into the steamy bathroom, looking down and wringing her hands nervously. “Sora,” she whispered.

“Why are you here? You’re supposed to be with Riku…”

“They’re at the beach… looking at the body…”

“But–”

“He’s a wanted man and you’re the Key Bearer. They’re just going to bury him, bury everything that happened.”

“That’s good…” Sora whispered.

“Sora, on the beach, you…”

“I killed a man, Kai. I killed him right in front of you. I’m so sorry.”

Kairi sniffled. “I was going to thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for protecting me and… for killing him. I wanted him dead.”

“You what?”

“After everything he did to me and for saying those things in front of you, I wanted him to die. I wanted him gone, Sora, I really did,” Kairi confessed. She stretched out her hands, fingertips gently touching his naked concave stomach. “You’re so thin,” she whispered. “Why do you suffer so much…?”

Sora clasped her hands gently in his own, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. 

“You’ve always suffered because of me. You’ve sacrificed everything for me,” she whispered. “And I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for that.”

“You don’t have to, Kai,” Sora whispered. He released her hands and brushed past her. “I have to get dressed. I’m sorry.”

“Sora,” she cried after him.

He stopped with his hand on the threshold of his bedroom door, leaning on it heavily. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I just… need to be alone right now.” Then, he ducked into his room and closed the door with a loud bang that went through Kairi like the condemning sound of a judge’s gavel.

Kairi dragged herself to the couch in the common room and slumped down on the cushions. She dried her eyes, trying not to allow any more tears to escape. Snuggling deeply in Sora’s jacket and wrapping herself in his scent, she fell into a deep exhausted sleep.

…

Riku sighed heavily and ran his hand down over his face, stretching the flesh with his palm. He groaned and grumbled to himself as he walked back to the ship. Things were supposed to get easier once he and Sora found Kairi again, but it had only gotten more difficult.

Now, Dominic was dead and there wasn’t going to be a case about his death. Sora wouldn’t even get a slap on the wrist for beating him to a bloody pulp. 

Riku could only pray that the hard part was behind them now. 

He stepped into the Gummi-ship, but it was dim and quiet. Kairi was nestled on the couch, wrapped tightly in Sora’s jacket, breathing slow and even, asleep. Sora was nowhere to be seen and the shower was not running. Riku assumed he was lying down in his own bedroom, also asleep, alone.

Riku gently shook Kairi and she woke up with a small groan and fluttering eyes.

“What are you doing?” 

“What?” she whispered.

“Where’s Sora?”

“He said he wanted to be alone,” Kairi said softly.

“And you let him?”

She looked up into Riku’s face, startled. “Yes. That’s what he asked for…”

“Since when do you give him what he asked for?!”

“What?”

“The Kairi I knew would never have left Sora alone when he was distraught. She would have Velcro-ed herself to his side even if he tried to push her away. So, what are you doing out here, sleeping on the couch?”

She looked at her hands, folded tightly in her lap, clenched into fists. “That’s what he… asked for…”

“Of course that’s what he asked for, Kairi, but you have to give him what he needs.”

“What he needs?” she whispered.

“That’s you, silly.”

“Really?”

…

Riku wanted her.

But, Sora needed her.

Kairi had wished for both.

Now, it was only her and Sora. 

Riku would stand aside to save them both.

He could only hope that this time, Sora would heal. 

…

Kairi stood up from the couch, glanced back over her shoulder at Riku who gave her a small tight smile and a thumbs-up, and then approached Sora’s closed bedroom door. She didn’t knock, just pushed open the door and peered nervously in.

The room was dim, blinds pulled, lights out. The fan was whirring overhead, making it cool and cave-like. 

“Sora?” she whispered and stepped into the dim chilly room. 

Sora was a dark silhouette on the bed, lying with his back to her. He was shirtless and half-dressed in pajama bottoms with the top lying out as if he had intended to put it on before lying down, but hadn’t gotten there. His naked skin was pale and glowed with sweat, all sinuous muscle and bone. Faint freckles dotted the tops of his shoulders cutely and there were several long pearl-white scars on his back.

“Sora?” she whispered and perched lightly on the edge of his bed. 

He silently drew his legs closer to his chest and grunted, “Kai, please, leave me alone.”

“But, Sora, I…” She ghosted her fingers along the naked skin of his shoulder, feeling every dip and bump of the joint. He was cool to the touch, like marble.

He rolled over and she stared at the naked span of his chest. He was defined with muscle and there wasn’t an ounce of fat on his body. He wasn’t built with eight-pack abs or with monstrous swelling biceps like Riku. He was slim, but he just exuded strength. There was one huge scar bisecting the center of his chest, faint and white, going the length of his sternum.

“Is that from…?”

“When I freed your heart,” he said quietly. 

Hesitantly, she put her palm down on his chest and felt his heartbeat beneath the layers of toned flesh. Then, she gently traced the path of the scar. 

“You’re body… it’s so…”

He pushed her hands away. “Horrible, I know. I see it every day,” he said darkly.

Kairi bit her lip. “I wasn’t going to say that…”

He closed his bright cerulean eyes. “Oh…?”

“It’s… you’re very beautiful, Sora.”

Their eyes met and he stared into her for a long moment. “You mean it?”

She nodded.

“Thank you,” he whispered and reached up towards her. 

For the first time in a long time, Kairi leaned into a touch. He cupped the side of her face gently, thumb settling below her eye and she did not fear that he would hurt her. Sora leaned towards her until their foreheads were touching. She could feel his nervous breath on her lips, his heart thundering beneath her hand where it still rested on his chest.

“Sora,” she said softly.

His lips just brushed hers. The faintest and most gentle touch she had felt in a long time. 

Then, suddenly, he pulled away. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I couldn’t control myself.”

“It’s alright,” Kairi whispered. “Sora… can I stay with you?”

He nodded and confessed, “I’d like that, Kai. I really would.”

She smiled and lay down beside him, resting her head on his pillow. Sora’s hands gently adjusted his jacket around her and he rolled over to face her. He looked into her eyes and she looked into his for a long while. Then, Sora put his palm lightly on her hip and just laid it there. His eyes drooped closed and then his breath was deep and moist on her throat. It was the first time Kairi shared a bed with someone she trusted and cared for. She didn’t have to worry about Sora ravaging her during the night or waking up beaten on the floor.

Sora was her best friend.

He was safety and comfort. 

He was that gentle brush of lips.

Before she knew it, she was asleep, too.

…

In the common room, Riku was listening, but when the ship fell completely silent, he decided that everything was alright now. He decided to leave them alone and went out to talk to TIdus, Wakka, Yuffie, and Selphie about putting them up again. They had been in the Gummi-ship for far too long.

It was time to get out and move on.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns? 


	13. Confessions of the Used

I got sick on vacation and had to come back early. Screw my life.

X X X

When Kairi woke up the next morning in Sora’s bed, she had a moment of small panic trail down her spine. His naked flesh was pressed against her cheek, heartbeat fast and strong in her ear. Her hand was resting on his stomach, low, nearly over his crotch, cupping his hip. But then, she reminded herself that this was Sora… this wasn’t some jackass John that had paid for a whole night with her body or even Riku who had held her so tightly against him. This was Sora, beautiful kind wonderful cerulean-eyed slender-figured broken Sora.

She pressed her nose into his warm honey-gold flesh and inhaled the scent of his skin… metal and sea-salt and blood and something masculine and completely him. 

His face smooth with sleep, lips curved in a faint smile. His eyes were closed, lids smooth and relaxed. His long thick lashes were like twin fans lying on his cheeks. His nostrils flared and twitched as he inhaled, tickled by the scent of Kairi’s hair and skin. His soft hair tickled her cheeks and her lips, tangled with her own cranberry strands. 

He wet his lips, glossing the skin, and his tongue momentarily worried the thick gash of blood at the corner of his mouth. The cut began to bleed again and his lips quirked with displeasure. Then, his eyes crinkled and fluttered open. The beautiful cerulean color shone in the dark, searching, searching, and then falling down the expanse of Kairi’s body where it was pressed against him. 

He smiled, full soft lips curving, eyes glowing with something Kairi dared not hope for. “Hey…” 

“Sora,” she whispered and nuzzled her face into the side his chest, smiling against his skin. 

For a long moment, he just thought how wonderful it felt to have her in his arms like this. Holding her had always been something he had dreamed of, longed for. There were times when he traveled–saving the world, destroying Heartless, chasing after Riku–where he would have given anything just to have her in his arms for a night, clutching her against the aching muscles of his over-used frame. 

She was such a comfort to him.

Sora was lying on his back while Kairi spooned on her side against him. Her warm soft curves were pressed to the hard planes of his body. Her head was tucked close to him, resting on his bicep with her face nestled against the curve of his ribs. Her soft hair was strewn across his shoulder, fanning like a curtain. One of her arms was tucked between their bodies, preventing her breasts from squashing against his side, while her other arm was draped over his waist. Her hand was close to his crotch, but he thought nothing of it. Their legs had tangled at some point in the night. Kairi’s were parted slightly, allowing Sora’s knee to slide between them. There was heat coming from her core, sinking into his flesh.

Sora rubbed her back with his palm, feeling the bumps and crags of scars even through his thick jacket. 

“How did you sleep?” Sora whispered to her.

She smiled and squeezed her thighs tightly. Then, her eyes widened when she realized his knee slipped gently between them. Her mouth opened to release a gasp and she quickly spread her legs, releasing his knee though the limb still pressed to the leg that was pinned to the bed.

“It’s alright, Kai,” Sora whispered and gently removed his leg from between hers. 

She let out a ragged sigh and closed her eyes. “I know, Sora,” she whispered. “It’s just…”

“You can’t trust me yet.”

She whimpered and he felt hot tears running down his ribcage from her tightly closed eyes. “I’m not ready to trust yet,” she sobbed. “It’s so hard for me to just… be like this with you…”

“Why?” he whispered. 

She snuggled her face into him, hiding, and she mumbled something into his skin. 

“What?”

“Sora, I want to… be with you… more than anything, but…”

He waited patiently, stroking the fall of silky claret tresses where they lay across his shoulder. Her hair was so soft and smelled faintly of blossoms.

“I’m afraid,” she whispered.

He did not repeat his earlier question. He knew she did not fear him, not him, never him. He believed her when she said that. So he waited, just waited for her to continue.

“I’m afraid,” she whispered, “to fall back in love with you…”

“You were…? You fell out of…?” Sora’s blood turned to ice in his veins and a knot formed in his throat, choking off his breath. “Afraid to love…? Why?”

Kairi shuddered, but the almost awkward moment was ground to an abrupt halt. 

There was a knock on Sora’s bedroom door and Riku poked his head in. “Hey, guys,” Riku said and he sounded a little sheepish. “Sorry to interrupt this…” he eyed their spooning, wrapped together bodies, and Kairi’s red puffy eyes. “…snuggling, but Selphie and Yuffie have finally barreled in–”

He didn’t get to finish that sentence because someone slammed into him from behind. Riku pitched in through the door with a yelp, spilling in through the threshold onto his face, Selphie was standing on his back, looking cheerful and excited.

“Hey, enjoying happiness here?” Selphie asked with a smile. 

Sora hid the thin scar bisecting his chest, from freeing Kairi’s heart, with one hand. The other helped Kairi sit up and then adjusted her shoulders so that she was hiding his naked flesh. “What time is it?” Sora asked.

“A little after ten,” Riku said, voice muffled, and heaved himself upright with a pushup, sending Selphie toppling backwards off of him. “I held them back for as long as I could.”

Then, Yuffie barged in behind him and once again sent him sprawling on his face. “Hey all!” she said, only a little less cheerfully than Selphie. She looked Kairi over, dismissing her red eyes and tousled appearance, and glowered through Sora’s clothing that Kairi was still clad in. “Girlfriend, we are so going shopping today!”

“Shopping?” Kairi whispered. 

“Yeah, shopping,” Selphie said eagerly. “How long do you plan on wearing Sora’s clothing, Kairi?”

She glanced back over her shoulder at Sora to find him pulling on his pajama shirt and buttoning the last button up at his throat. 

“Would you two girls get the hell off of me?!” Riku shouted and once again heaved himself upright. “Jeez! You two are so high-strung!”

Yuffie started laughing and Selphie soon joined in. 

“We have even better news,” Yuffie said once she caught her breath. “You boys will not have to stay with Wakka and Tidus!”

“What about the legalities?” Riku joked.

Selphie giggled and explained, “You already stayed with them for like two hours! Legalities–” she made a slashing motion with her hand “–over!” 

“We, being the geniuses that we are, got your old family houses cleaned up and ready to go! Shelves are stocked, beds are made, laundry is done, windows and floors are cleaned, and everything is in livable condition!” Yuffie and Selphie cheered and once again collapsed into giggles.

“Really? You mean no one sold our houses while we were gone? We’ve been gone for years, living on this Gummi-ship,” Riku said incredulously. 

Yuffie put her elbow in Selphie’s ribs and said softly, “We figured if you didn’t find Kairi, you’d at least want the places you guys grew up with her.” 

Then, Selphie smiled and said, “But we knew you’d find her.”

“So, my house…? My home…?” Kairi whispered.

Yuffie sadly shook her head. “There was a fire while the boys… while Sora was getting better the first time… and since no one lived there anymore, it burned to the ground before anyone noticed. Sorry,” she said quietly.

Kairi’s eyes welled with tears, but they did not roll down her face. 

“You can stay with us, if you want, or you can stay with one of the boys,” Yuffie said.

“But before then, we are going shopping!” Selphie shouted. “So brush your teeth, comb your hair, put on deodorant, and all that jazz and let’s go!”

“But–” Kairi said and glanced back over her shoulder at Sora. 

His beautiful eyes were barred and shadowed, but he curled his lips into a faint smile just for her. “Go,” he urged. “Have fun.”

Then, Selphie and Yuffie both had her under her arms and were dragging her from the safety, comfort, and confessions of Sora’s warm bed. She glanced back at the boys desperately as her old girlfriends dragged her away. 

Riku called after her, “You’re on your own. Shopping isn’t our forte.”

…

It had been years since Kairi had been shopping, years since she had put on fresh beautiful clothes. Selphie and Yuffie hauled her through the streets and a lot of people stared at the troubled-looking girl wearing the Key Bearer’s clothes. Yuffie glowered at them until they all averted their eyes. Then, they hustled Kairi into the mall.

The air conditioning sucked at her skin as they breezed her through store after store buying what they claimed were “the essentials.” Selphie selected perfume and panties, Yuffie gathered hair pins and socks. Then, the digressed to shoes, exhausting Kairi trying on pair after pair and making her stroll in front of the mirrors. Finally, they had selected a few purses for her. 

Last was Kairi’s nightmare: clothes. 

She would have to take off Sora’s clothes, revealing her scars and her used body. She was trembling by the time they paid for their current purchases and moved to the clothing department. 

They left the mall, hauling their purchases in countless bags and went up a few dim narrow side streets. Yuffie stepped over a hobo and Selphie called and eager greeting to him. Kairi skirted nervously behind her friends, flitting from shadow to shadow like a thief.

“It’s silly to buy an entire wardrobe new in the mall,” Yuffie explained. “Selphie and I get a lot of our clothes from the Thrift Shop. It’s our favorite place to shop. They have such a crazy variety.” She laughed joyously. “Once, I got a pair of pajamas patterned with underpants, you know, the old fashioned polka dotted ones for boys.”

Selphie leaned over and whispered in Kairi’s ear, “She wears them out in public. Much to my great embarrassment.”

Kairi didn’t laugh. As it was, she barely smiled.

“Something wrong, Kairi?” Selphie asked.

“No, nothing,” she whispered and fisted her hands in Sora’s jacket. 

Shrugging, Yuffie pulled open the Thrift Shop door and Selphie followed her inside. Kairi hesitated and a hobo walked out, smiling at her with crooked yellow teeth. Though his smile was sincere, it unnerved her and she hurried after her friends.

Then, Selphie and Yuffie roamed the racks, searching for the perfect outfit for Kairi. Kairi absently ran her fingers over the fabrics that caught her eyes. Pinks, purples, whites: the colors she used to love. Dark blues, crimson reds, black: colors Sora wore, the colors she had been wearing by default. Yellows: colors Riku wore that did not suit her. Every color reminded her of the brothel: blood red, white sex, purple bruised and beaten skin, crying pinks eyes, yellow coins jingling into Dominic’s hands, black despair, her dream of Sora’s beautiful blue eyes.

“How about this?” Yuffie called. A dark skirt with layers of vintage black lace beneath the black-blue silk.

“Or this?” Selphie called and displayed a yellow tank with deep orange beadwork. 

When Kairi said nothing, just looked nervously between the two articles of clothing, they looked at each other and then back at the clothing they had picked for Kairi. They both held up something similar to their own styles.

Selphie and Yuffie said, “This isn’t working. It’s like we’re shopping for ourselves.”

“Kairi, you have to pick something you like,” Yuffie said.

Kairi nervously wet her lips and brushed between her friends. “But, I don’t know…”

Selphie sighed. “It’s just like old times, Kairi. Come on, how about something vintage?”

“Yeah,” Yuffie chimed in and pulled a blue gown with starry rhinestone decal around the heart-shaped bodice and long train from the rack. “You used to love stuff like this.”

“Except Kairi likes things in pink and purple. Yuffie likes blue and black,” Selphie said flatly.

Yuffie grumbled and shoved the dark gown back into the rack before crossing her arms indignantly. She snapped irritably, “Alright, Miss Genius, you help her find something then if you’re so smart.”

“Alright, I will,” Selphie snapped and turned to Kairi. “Why don’t you grab a dressing room and I’ll bring you a bunch of outfits to try on. How does that sound?”

Kairi nodded and went to a dressing room like Selphie had said. Once the door was safely closed behind her, she buried her face into the thick lining of Sora’s jacket and inhaled the wonderful soothing scent of him. She tried to choke back her tears of panic and worry. 

What would Yuffie and Selphie say when they saw the scars?

First, Yuffie brought her a vintage dress that was all layers of pink lace and white satin and ruffles and roses. It smelled like dust and mothballs, like it hadn’t been touched for centuries. This dress had long sleeves with long ruffles and a full back that successfully hid her scars. She tried it on and stepped out for her friends. 

Selphie wrinkled her mouth and Yuffie hit herself in the forehead with a grumble of, “What was I thinking?” 

Clearly, this Wedding-cake-and-roses dress was a NO.

Second, Selphie brought a strange ensemble of a short snakeskin skirt and a frilly black tank top with a tie-in-the-front red shirt decorated with sequins and beads in a swirling pattern. She also gave Kairi a feather boa in black and silver and high-heeled cowboy boots. 

When, Kairi stepped out, she was drowning in the flashy clothing even more than in Sora’s clothes. 

“It’s too flashy for her,” Selphie said flatly. 

“Gee, you think?” Yuffie snapped.

Third, they put their heads together and found Kairi a more Destiny-Island-friendly outfit. They collected a rose-colored tank top with a small pattern of red hearts along the bottom and a short pleated skirt in white dense rose embroidery in deep red. The only problem was… it revealed her shoulders and much of her upper back.

She trembled as she stepped from the dressing room, gripping her bird-skull shoulders in her hands as if that would prevent the scars from being seen. 

“Go on, Kairi, spin for us,” Selphie said and smiled. “Lower your hands.”

Shaking terribly, Kairi did as asked and slowly spun around for her friends. Her scars felt outlined in black, clearly visible, obvious, even on her chalk-pale skin. Yuffie gasped and grabbed Kairi by her shoulders. Then, she grabbed Selphie by the front of her shirt and shoved everyone back into the dressing room. She slammed and locked the door behind them before whirling around in a blur of dark hair and long black ribbons.

“Jesus, Kairi! What on earth happened to your back?!” Yuffie demanded.

Selphie touched one that went over the top of Kairi’s shoulder to her collarbone. “Oh God, Sora?!”

Yuffie followed her train of thought with equal disbelief. “He wouldn’t…?! He couldn’t…?!”

“Then… all that time you were gone…?!”

“Did you run away?!”

Selphie hugged her tightly. “Oh God, we couldn’t blame you! We’ll help you get away again!”

“NO!” Kairi shouted, her violet-blue eyes brimming with tears as she shook her head wildly. “NO! He would never hurt me! It wasn’t him!”

“Then, what…?!” Yuffie and Selphie demanded.

Kairi couldn’t find her voice. Her chest was knotted up with panic. “I was…” she croaked. “I was… I was… I was trapped! I was forced into a brothel and the boss…! H-h-h-he beat everyone. He used knives and whips and he sk-sk-skinned part of my back as punishment!”

“Punishment? For what?”

Kairi sobbed into her hands. “For thinking of Sora… for wanting to be saved…”

“What a sick bastard!” Yuffie shouted, surely shocking the entire store, not that she cared. “I’ll kill him!”

“Sora already killed him,” Selphie whispered, beginning to make connections that she hadn’t been able to make without talking to her friends. “He was the guy on the beach. The one that had been beaten to a bloody pulp.”

Yuffie’s eyes widened as she, too, understood. “No way… Sora did that?!”

Kairi nodded and sniffled. 

Selphie produced a handkerchief and handed it to Kairi to dry her tears. “Alright, buck up, sister. Everything’s okay now,” Selphie said cheerfully and pinched Kairi’s now-dry cheeks, forcing her mouth into a smile. “You’re safe and Sora’s much better. Let’s find you an outfit that covers up those scars, if you want to, that is?”

“If I want to…?”

“Well, yeah. They’re nothing to be ashamed of. You didn’t ask for what happened to you and you didn’t deserve it,” Yuffie explained. “You don’t have to hide anything anymore, not now that you’re home!” 

“You went through Hell and came back alive!” Selphie said cheerfully. “Besides, if anyone asks you anything you don’t want to answer, tell them to bug off and sic Sora on them!”

The girls laughed and Kairi smiled at them so beautifully that Selphie was sure Sora would have melted into a puddle of Key Bearing Goo at the sight of her. Yuffie hugged her tightly and then Selphie hugged her as well. 

Then, Selphie broke the tension by saying, “This dressing room isn’t big enough for three people!” Then, she opened the door and spilled out as if she really had been packed in there like a sardine. “Ah! Sweet relief! AIR!”

Yuffie shook her head and glanced at Kairi. “She’s ridiculous, isn’t she?”

Kairi nodded.

“What are all you people staring at?! Go back to shopping!” Selphie shouted and flailed her arms. “GO!”

“She should be medicated,” Yuffie grumbled.

“I heard that, Yuffie!” 

…

Kairi was sufficiently exhausted when their shopping spree was over. Laden with bags, the girls returned to the Gummi-ship to find it dark and deserted. Riku had left a note with his and Sora’s addresses on it, as if Yuffie or Selphie had forgotten. He also said to call him and Sora and tell them both what her plans were for staying. (She could stay with Riku, Sora, or Yuffie and Selphie.) 

Dressed in new clothing, but with Sora’s jacket still tight around her shoulders, Kairi felt as if she could face anything. When she told Yuffie and Selphie who she wanted to stay with, they agreed wholeheartedly and even cheered her on. They helped her with her bags and then dropped her off at the doorstep she had known all her life. She waved to Yuffie and Selphie as they walked away after assuring them both that she would be fine.

Taking a deep breath, Kairi knocked lightly on her door and then let herself in. 

Through the dimness, she called, “Sora?”

X X X

I was going to leave everyone hanging on who she was staying with, but I figured you’d all guess. So, anyone wondering what kind of clothes Selphie and Yuffie helped Kairi pick out? Anyone wondering anything? And, just for the record, thrift stores do totally rock!

REVIEW OR SORA GETS AN UNHAPPY ENDING! 

Questions, comments, concerns?


	14. The Bond Reforms

I will definitely be finishing this story to the end! If I put one more thing ON HAITUS people are going to chase me with pointy objects. And I really don’t want that so…

Actually, I plan to finish this up by 15 chapters, if everything goes as planned, which is always a bit of a struggle for my stories as characters like to leap off the page and have to be wrestled/threatened back into their proper places. I mean, look at Sora! He’s going nuts here and I had to reign in Yuffie and Selphie in the last chapter. They were just supposed to see the scars and go shopping: that was IT! But they had a whole love fest!

Grr!

X X X

It was good to be home, Sora thought. He had missed the island. He had missed his home. He had missed his friends, his independent life that spared Riku from the duties of “mother hen” as he had heard Riku grumbling to himself one night. He had missed his sanity, his Kairi… 

He had missed everything.

_“I’m afraid… to fall back in love with you.”_

Kairi’s words chased endlessly through is head, swirling a mixture of good and bad like dirt and blood down a drain. Dizzily, Sora put his hand to the cool tile shower wall to support himself and then rested his heated forehead beside his hand. 

He sighed heavily. 

The good part was: she loved him. She had fallen in love with him! 

The bad part was: it seemed to be past tense. What chance did he have of winning her back now? 

He was unstable, crazy even. He had overdosed on sleeping pills and antidepressants and had barely survived. He had beaten a man to death in front of her and he had continued to do so long after the man was dead. Riku had had to pull him off.

She had said that his body was beautiful, had touched his naked flesh, but he knew the truth. He was a useless twig, pounds stripped from him by his depression and obsession. His chest was bisected by the scar from her heart, from impaling himself on the Key Blade to save her. Usually, it was something he showed pridefully to himself in the mirror, but now that she knew about his secret mark of his love for her, it felt like the scar was burning through is clothes. He had freckles on his pale skin, dotting his shoulders and wrists. His face was nothing special, childish, once baby-round, but now thin and gaunt with angular bones. 

He could admit to himself that maybe all she saw where his eyes. Lots of people commented on his eyes: on the determination and strength in them, at the beautiful color.  
She had dreamed for those eyes, she had told him that on the beach. 

She loved him!

…previously… before… formerly… once…

_“I’m afraid… to fall back in love with you.”_

Even more troubling was… why would she be afraid to fall in love with him again if she had loved him once?

Unless… she didn’t want to love him anymore? But she would be able to resist him if that was the case. His charms were not so great as to woo a woman like Kairi, smart and beautiful and strong, with one glance. He wasn’t Riku, after all.

Maybe she just wanted to be his friend, which was enough to sustain him, but he would always long to be more to her.

Sighing against, Sora ran his hand through his damp hair and discovered he had yet to rinse the shampoo from it. Ducking his head beneath the stream of hot water, he scrubbed his fingers through the thick chestnut tresses that now flattened with water unlike they had in his youth. Sufficiently clean, Sora shut off the water and stepped out, closing the shower stall door behind himself. He dried his face first and then wrapped the towel around his sharp hips.

The bathroom was swirling with thick steam and the mirror was foggy. Sora spent a moment staring at the frosted quicksilver and then he swiped his palm across it. His own eyes stared back at him, red-rimmed and framed with deep dark bruise-like circles. 

He hadn’t heard his phone ringing, so Kairi must have decided to stay with Riku…

_“I’m afraid… to fall back in love with you.”_

He closed his eyes with a sigh and scrubbed his face with his wet hands. 

She had loved him once… why couldn’t she do it again? 

What was different? Why was it different?

Even better… could he fix it?

Could he have her back?

Would she even want him again?

He slammed his hand down on the vanity and stared at the tightened tendons standing out against his translucently-pale skin. The dark veins beneath, rushing with life-giving blood, felt filled with mud. His heart was beating labored and strong in his chest, as if struggling to push this gunk through his veins. 

_“I’m afraid… to fall back in love with you.”_

It was eating him alive.

Sora went to his bedroom without turning on any lights, exploring the home of his youth easily since everything was how he had left it. In his room, he had put away all of his clothing from the Gummi-ship in his single chest of drawers. Silently, he took out a pair of pajama bottoms and a shirt, dropped the towel, and slipped them on. Then, he took his towel and dried the rest of his body, spending a moment viciously drying his hair. Then, he pulled back the sheets and slid between the covers. 

The sheets smelled strange, like Yuffie and Selphie, and he assumed they had laundered the dusty linens before making the bed. For a moment, he wondered why the sheets would smell this way if he had his own washing machine here. It would have been silly for the girls to take the sheets back to their apartment, wash them, and then bring them back and, though he wouldn’t put it past Selphie, he knew Yuffie wasn’t that dumb. Then, it occurred to him. He did have any detergent in his house. Yuffie or Selphie would have brought a bottle over.

Content that the mystery was solved, he rolled over and buried his face in his pillow. He inhaled deeply the mingling scents of himself and Kairi from the night before. Sleep fell heavily on his back, pressing him into his old mattress like a mother’s firm hand, but it was strange to not hear the sounds of the Gummi-ship or Riku up and moving around. His home was quiet except for the faint dripping from the kitchen sink and the night breeze stirring the blinds of his open window.

He found the silence troubling and lay there for a moment, holding his breath and listened.

Someone else was breathing besides him, someone close. 

His heart started hammering and his mind flew with possibilities. He wanted to summon the Key Blade, but denied himself the weapon. He had just killed someone and there were no Heartless on the island anymore. He needed to take it down a notch, like Riku said.

He reached out in the darkness of the room, groping across the cool sheets until he felt the warm lump of a body curled on its side in is bed with him. 

His heart leaped into his throat and he whispered, “Kai…?”

She made a small sound and inhaled deeply, as waking people often did, and he quickly withdrew his hands. Finally, her eyes fluttered open and the violet color glowed in the faint moonlight. Her hair was fanned across his pillows like cherry silk and her face was all aglow with moonlight. She looked beautiful, more beautiful than usual, as hard as that was for Sora to admit, especially laying in his bed beside him in the dark.

“Sora,” she whispered and smiled faintly. “I called Riku. I want to stay with you, if that’s okay…”

For a moment, he couldn’t find his voice and Kairi began to look nervous.

“I can leave, if that’s what you want…”

“No!” Sora gasped out and drew her tightly against his chest. She made a small sound of contentment in her chest and nuzzled against his long collarbone, breathing into his neck. He felt her tongue dart out and touch his skin when she wet her lips. “Kai…” he whispered and shivered at the innocent contact.

“Sora, I… I want to be with you,” Kairi whispered and, much to his surprise, she wrapped her arms around him and held him equally tightly. “I want to be like this with you.”

He nuzzled her hair, pressing his warm cheek to hers. “I’m glad,” he whispered.

“Sora, can I… can I ask you something?” Kairi whispered and her fingers dug into his back. 

Wincing, Sora murmured, “Of course.”

“And you won’t react… badly…?”

He shook his head, holding her close. “What is it?” he asked.

“Are you…? Do you…? Um… do you want to be with me just for… sex?” she whispered.

“What?!” Sora’s voice was sharp and loud and his arms tightened almost painfully around her body. She let out a small yelp of pain and he pushed her back at arm’s length, holding her by her shoulders. Kairi’s eyes were squeezed tightly shut and she refused to look at him even when he begged her to. “Why would you think that?”

“It’s just… it’s been so long since anyone wanted me. All those men, they just wanted my body. They just wanted to be inside me. That was all they wanted and I longed so much for you and Riku, but… it feels like that was years ago. I’ve… forgotten what it feels like to have someone like you with me and I’m… unsure,” she confessed. 

He understood that, but their seemed to be nothing he could say that would banish those fears from her. Finally, chewing his lip nervously, he asked, “Kai, can I tell you something?”

She nodded hesitantly and he felt a shudder run through her body.

“I love you,” he whispered and gently put his lips to her soft pink cheek. 

She let out a small gasp and gripped the front of his shirt, pulling him almost eagerly towards her. A tremor of heat went through her, settling nicely in her belly. He felt her throat working, her nervous excited breath on his face, her cranberry locks tickling his skin.

“S-Sora,” she gasped and he wondered if that was a pleasure he heard in her voice. 

With a small cute smacking sound, he finished kissing her cheek and pulled back. His face felt hot, cheeks pink with an embarrassed blush both from her reaction and his own guts. 

She leaned almost desperately after him. Her lips were parted and glossy, her eyes heavy-lidded and starry. Her pulse was beating in her throat and her breath rushed into her lungs. “Sora,” she whispered. “You really…?”

He nodded and his lips quirked in a faint beautiful grin. “Yeah, Kai,” he whispered. “I’ve always loved you.”

Her breath was light and nervous on his cheeks and he felt the tip of her nose brush his cheek. “You mean that?”

“Of course,” he said softly. 

He felt her legs cautiously tangling with his again, as they had been earlier that morning, and he eagerly cuddled against her. His knee once again slid between her parted thighs, relishing the heat coming off of her body. He could feel her slim muscles quivering and then relaxing into stillness. She sighed and pulled him tightly against her frame. He ran his fingers through her hair, gently, softly, enjoyed holding her again.

“Sora?”

“Hmm?”

“Have you ever…?”

He shook his head. “No, never.”

“But, you’re…”

“What?”

“The Key Bearer…”

“You think that makes woman line up for me.” Sora laughed a little. “I couldn’t even think of anyone that way. I’ve always…” For a long moment, he hesitated, wondering how this would sound to her, but the words were already half out of his mouth. “I’ve always… been waiting for you,” he confessed.

Kairi sobbed and tried to push him away. 

Sora gripped her, unwilling to allow her to escape him. “No,” he whispered. “Don’t push me away, Kai.”

“I… it was taken from me,” she whispered. “I’m not… I’m not…”

Sora closed his eyes, once again hating Dominic for taking her away from him. 

“I’m not pure like you, Sora. I’m dirty and I’m used. I’m broken.”

“No, you’re not,” he said firmly. “You’re still perfect. It’ll be like no one has ever touched you, I promise.”

She looked up into his face incredulously and wonderingly. 

Then, he realized how his words had just sounded. He was saying that if she gave herself to him, he would pretend it was like her first time, like nothing had ever happened. 

“Kai,” he whispered. “I love you and I… I want to spend my life with you.” He nuzzled into her throat, putting his nose to the cup of her long collarbone. Her skin smelled sweet and clean, fresh, like the beach and night sky. 

“Sora… what… what does love feel like?” she whispered. “Does it… still feel the same?”

He started, shocked. 

How could she not know what love felt like? 

Then, shame pressed against his heart. 

Kairi had been hurt so badly. She had been stolen from him, beaten and hurt and abused, used and violated as a prostitute, her body torn apart for sex and hate. Love was scorned and foreign word in places like that.

“It’s like… walking into the light,” he whispered and tried to explain as best he could. “It feels warm and safe. And you would do anything, even die, for the person you love. Your heart feels full to the brim, spilling over, like there’s too much blood and you have to give it to someone else. And, when that person is gone, it’s like a piece of you is missing.” He looked up to find her eyes fixed into his, burning him with such desperate intensity that he couldn’t breathe. 

“You feel like that?” she whispered.

He nodded.

“For me?”

He nodded, closing his eyes. 

She cuddled against him, pressing her hands over his pounding heart. Her lips feathered against his throat, softly, gently, like a butterfly’s touch. 

Sora’s fingers lightly roamed her body, tenderly touching the curve and swell of her side, tracing the curve of her ribs, following her long collarbone. His fingers flit over her upturned face, over her soft full lips that he wanted to dearly to kiss but would not, and down the slender bones of her throat. She shivered as he gently trailed the valley of her breasts, but he made no move to touch her intimately, just continued his gentle caress. He put his palm to the concave curve of her stomach and that was when he felt it beneath her thin cotton pajamas.

There was a small horizontal fissure in her lower abdomen, maybe two or three inches long and straight, like a knife had been pushed into her. It felt deep and twisted and ugly. Sora put his fingertip into the old wound through her shirt and Kairi flinched.

“What is this from?” he whispered.

Kairi put her hand over his and guided it away from the scar. “I can’t have babies,” she whispered. 

Sora made a small broken sound deep in his chest. His fingers hesitated at the hem of her shirt, slowly pulled it up, and then laid over the naked flesh of the indentation. “He did that to you. He stole that from you,” Sora whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

Kairi put her hand over his, but this time did not push him away. “It’s not your fault,” she whispered. Then, hesitantly, she murmured, “I… I love you, too…”

Sora’s heart leaped into his throat and he quickly struggled to swallow the offending organ so he could speak again. “You’re sure…?” he whispered because it was just too good to be true.

Kairi bit her lip, closed her eyes, and actually appeared to consider it before opening her beautiful violet-blue eyes, looking deeply into his cerulean ones, and smiling wonderfully. “Yes, Sora,” she murmured and put her hand over his pounding heart again. “I… trust you. I want to stay with you for the rest of this life, for the rest of my soul’s natural life. I love you,” she whispered. 

Sora hugged her close to his chest, gripping her small slender body tightly. His chest was warm and tight, heart beating strongly. 

He felt as if an iron curtain was being lifted from his shoulders. All of his sorrow and pain and anger and desperation were just melting away, slinking back into the shadows of his heart and his doubting mind. As always, there was a little twinge of fear in him: a fear that she would still want Riku or that she would be taken again, but he pushed it away. He vowed that nothing would harm her ever again. He would protect her with his very soul, no matter the cost, until the day he died.

He inhaled the scent of her skin, breathing her into him. He cradled her, pressing his hands into the small of her back, holding every inch of her to him as if to absorb her heart into his body once more.

Kairi clutched Sora’s pajama top in her fingers, rubbing the soft clean cotton. He was trembling like a small animal, broken and healing, frightened but loving, and holding her so tightly to him as if he thought she would vanish the moment he stopped clutching her. She ventured her arms away from his chest, threaded her fingers through his hair, and smoothed the soft chestnut locks into spikes against her palms. He sighed blissfully, breath moist and warm on her throat. 

Somehow, lying in bed like that was more intimate than any sex they could have shared.

X X X

Anime lover bebe: Thank you for reviewing almost every chapter! You’ve kept me going!

Alice: Thank you for your wonderful constructive criticism and praise!

Everhopefull83: I’m so happy you came out of the proverbial “reviewing closet” to save Sora! And for the constructive criticism and praise!

KHGamegirl, SakuraSou1307, random reader, Swordstalker0, enigma infinite: thank you all for reviewing! 

Questions, comments, concerns?


	15. Epilogue

Last chapter!

Sorry it took me so long, but I wasn’t feeling lemon-inspired! I had to wait for the mushy sweaty inspiration to hit me! Oh so important author’s note at the end!

X X X

Kairi woke up wrapped in Sora’s protective embrace, cuddled in his arms, nestled against his chest. He was warm and soft and wonderful. She nuzzled into the heated hollow of his throat with the tip of her nose, feathering her lips against the tender skin.

Sora made a small sound, almost a purr, and his beautiful eyes fluttered open. His long thick lashes caught on a few strands of Kairi’s cranberry locks. “Good morning, Kai,” Sora murmured and smiled at her.

“Hi,” Kairi whispered.

Sora groaned as he released her to stretch his arms high over his head. “Let’s get up and go to the beach, Kai,” he whispered. “What do you say?”

She smiled against his throat, snuggling closer to his body.

…

The beach was beautiful, lit by the predawn glow in orange and red and gold. The cerulean water glowed like Sora’s wonderful eyes and the sky stretched on forever without a single frosted cotton-candy-fluff of cloud. The waves lapped at the polished white sands, pushing up bright shells and beaching horse shoe crabs. 

Riku was sitting in their favorite tree from when they were younger, before all the Heartless and darkness and pain. 

It was early. No one was about on the beach except for one young woman swimming naked against the current. (Riku tried not to watch her.)

He heard faint footsteps behind him and then someone was lifted up on the bowed truck of the tree beside him, long pale legs sliding down over the bark and skirt spreading out, just like old times. Beside Kairi, Sora jumped easily onto the low trunk, straddling it to face his two friends. 

“Good morning, Riku,” Sora said and he sounded happier than he had since before Kairi was taken. “Beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Riku grunted. 

Riku hoisted himself onto the trunk beside Kairi. He glanced over at her and she smiled. With one hand, she was caressing the bark of the tree, feeling it as if she wanted to ingrain this moment into her fingers forever, but in her other hand, she held Sora’s.

“I see you two have made up,” Riku murmured. “What inspired the change?”

Kairi’s cheeks tinged pink and she quickly turned her head to look at Sora. She whispered his name.

“Riku,” Sora murmured. “You’ve known. You’ve always known…”

Riku took a deep breath and let it out. “Come with me, Sora. I want to talk to you a minute.”

Sora nodded as if he knew this was inevitable, swung his leg over, and jumped down from the tree. Kairi was still gripping his hand almost desperately, pleading at him with her eyes. Maybe she feared a fight between them, a new ocean like her to separate her wonderful friends.

“It’s alright, Kairi,” Riku said. 

Sora nodded, smiled, and she slowly released his hand. “Why don’t you wait here, Kai? Watch the sun come up for me, please,” Sora said kindly. 

Then, he followed Riku across the sand, barefoot and trusting, not that Riku would ever hurt him again. Once they were out of Kairi’s earshot, they turned and faced each other. Sora put his back to Kairi and looked up into Riku’s face. 

“I’m sorry, Sora,” Riku whispered. “When you thought I was taking her, I did want to…”

Sora closed his eyes as if keeping them open was too much of a burden. 

“But she was always yours, Sora. She’s always been meant just for you,” Riku said softly. “You two are destined for each other. You have an unbreakable bond.”

Sora dug his toes into the sand. “I’m sorry, Riku…” he whispered. “You loved her, too. I never knew.”

Riku shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. There’s always been an ocean separating Kairi and I, always…” Then, he looked into Sora’s eyes, his wide trusting beautiful eyes, and smiled. “You got the girl, my friend. You win,” Riku said and clapped Sora on the back in a tight hug. “Take good care of her.”

“I will,” Sora whispered and returned Riku’s embrace. Then, they stepped back from each other. “You can kill me yourself if I don’t.”

Riku laughed. “It won’t come to that.” 

Then, they returned to the tree and watched the sun come up over the ocean with Kairi. She smiled at them both, eyes brimming and gleaming with happy tears, and reached out one hand for Sora. Riku watched their fingers mesh, tangling perfectly. Sora didn’t leap on to the trunk beside her, but stood at her feet, leaning warm against her legs. She put her fingers into the cool of his soft spiky hair. Riku sat beside her, looking over the friends that were now finally together. Once again, the three were whole and nothing would come between them again. 

Everything was alright now.

…

At noon, the trio went to their favorite restaurant that sold only mixed-up cuisine with Selphie, Yuffie, Wakka, and Tidus. 

Coconut Thai noodles with almond and ginger pieces of glossy fish, sweet jasmine white rice with a refreshing mango salsa, Chinese eggrolls stuffed with salsa and spicy fried shrimp and crisp noodles, Korean soba with tasty crunchy vegetables, Mexican tamales wrapped in corn husk and filled with lemongrass and chicken, Italian pasta smothered in thick Alfredo… Raspberry lemon swirl cheesecakes, fluffy croissants with almonds, sweet bread with Bavarian crème filling, peppermint and chocolate cake, Crème Brulee, brownies slathered in sweet plums, cherry and cheese Danish, tiramisu…

Packed into their favorite round booth, elbow to elbow, and sharing the wild dishes on a lazy Susan in the center of the table, the friends all sat. 

Selphie and Wakka were in a war, fighting with their chopsticks over a dumpling full of peaches and sweet bean paste. Yuffie crunched fried vegetables and tried to persuade Tidus to try a tamale with monkey meat in it. Riku, as always, tried everything wordlessly, making fascinating faces as he tried strange dishes from all over the worlds. Sora picked up an eggroll, puckering his face up and sniffing it, before biting into the crisp fried noodle. Kairi was between the Riku and Sora, watching their faces and giggling to herself as she hesitantly tried things that didn’t appear too frightening. 

“This tastes like fatty steak,” Tidus muttered and poked at the discarded corn husk on his plate. “Who would’ve thought monkey would taste like fatty steak?”

“They have monkey eyeballs here, too,” Yuffie said and put a piece of glossy sushi into her mouth after dipping it into hot Mexican salsa. “Yum,” she said and reached for another. 

Selphie won the little war with Wakka and popped the last dumpling into her mouth. “I love this place,” she purred. “It’s just sinfully good!”

“Taking the last dumpling was a sin,” Wakka muttered and sorrowfully tried the pasta he had whirled around the chopsticks. “But this is good, too.”

“I’ll try some of that,” Selphie said eagerly and reached over Wakka for a taste.

Riku tried one of the pieces of fish Yuffie was cooing about and crinkled up his entire face. “Eww,” he said almost inaudibly. 

Sora snickered. 

“Fine, smart guy, you taste it!” Riku grumbled and rotated the lazy Susan until the plate of fish was in front of Sora. “Go ahead. Put your mouth where your mouth is!”

Grinning from ear to ear, Sora popped a piece of fish into his mouth and his brow wrinkled in displeasure, but so as not to lose he forced on a smile. “Yum,” he croaked.

“You didn’t even try the salsa,” Riku snapped.

Sora picked up a spoon and put entire tablespoon of burning salsa into his mouth. His eyes watered, but he did manage to swallow though not without difficulty. “Double yum,” he croaked. 

Kairi handed him a napkin to wipe his mouth and gently patted his back. 

“Thanks, Kai,” Sora said and leaned over to gently put his lips to her cheek.

Kairi’s cheek reddened and she quickly put a spicy fried shrimp into her mouth to explain the flush, but she did not pull away from Sora.

Riku grinned, having seen the little moment. 

“So, Kairi, how’re you doing?” Yuffie asked.

“Happy to be back on the islands?” Selphie continued.

“And eating weird foods?” Tidus questioned.

Kairi smiled and nodded. “It’s good to be home,” she said and smiled at everyone around the table, “and among friends.”

They all smiled back at her. 

Then, Wakka asked the dreaded question. “So, where have you been all these years anyway?”

Sora tensed up beside her, but Kairi gently put her hand on his leg under the table and smiled confidently at Wakka. She rolled her narrow shoulders, revealing a touch of the scars on her body, and said plainly, “I was trapped in a brothel.”

The entire restaurant appeared to fall silent, a testimony to eavesdropping out in public. 

“You what?” Tidus shouted.

“How?” Wakka demanded.

Kairi leaned hard into Sora, suddenly a little frightened of her abrupt revelation though Wakka and Tidus were the only ones who hadn’t known. Sora put his arm around her waist and soothingly rested his cheek on her hair. Everyone took in this show of affection with wide eyes.

Yuffie snapped at them. “Get a grip, guys. She’s home now, safe and sound with us. Nothing else matters anymore,” she snarled.

“Besides,” Selphie said with a mischievous grin. “Look at our Sora with our Kairi.”

Tidus wolf-whistled.

Then, they all laughed and returned to eating.

Friends forever.

Friends to the end.

…

The end of the day was soft and gentle, creeping fingers of cool twilight through the sky and the air like a mother’s gentle touch on her wounded child. Cicadas and crickets, the evening musicians, began the soft music of nighttime. The sunset was beautiful, burning bright and rosy and washed with frosty clouds, spreading across the wine-dark ocean. 

Sora and Kairi were sitting at the edge of the surf, feet bare as they had been all day, cool water lapping up Kairi’s bare legs and at Sora’s toes. Sora was seated comfortably in the sand, leaning back on his hands, with Kairi settled between his legs, reclining against his chest. She had her hands resting on his naked knees, touching the soft skin. Sora put his chin on the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her and the ocean.

“Sora,” Kairi whispered and tilted her head back at an obscene angle so she could look at him.

“You’re going to hurt your neck,” Sora whispered and nuzzled her with his nose.

Kairi sat up and turned around in his lap. She put her forehead to his and closed her eyes. “Sora, we’re here, like this…”

“Yes?” Sora whispered, sensing that she had more to say.

“This is almost everything I’ve ever wanted.”

Sora’s heart clenched. “Almost…?”

“I’ve always…” she trailed off, hesitating. “I’ve always wanted… you to kiss me…”

His stomach filled with heat, blood rushing into his lower body. “You want that?”

She nodded and her eyes looked almost ashamed. “I’ll understand… if you don’t want to…”

Sora wrapped his arms around her shoulders and put his finger gently to her lips. “Hush, Kai,” he whispered and raised her face so that she was looking into his eyes. She saw a heart-bursting amount of love in his cerulean eyes and trust and hope and everything that was Sora. He felt her nervous breath on his face.

No more words came between them.

Gently, Sora put his lips to hers, cupping the sides of her face in his warm sandy hands. Kairi threaded her fingers through his hair and kissed him almost desperately. He held her tightly to his chest, breathing in the scent of her. Hesitantly, he licked her lower lip. She let out a small gasp, but Sora did not shove his tongue into her mouth savagely as a John would have done. Tenderly, he once again touched her lower lip with his tongue and waited for her to invite him into her. Finally, her tongue touched his. Only then did he explore her and she responded to him in an almost expert way. 

When they broke apart for air, Kairi look breathless and flushed. Sora’s eyes were glowing in the moonlight. 

“I love you,” Sora whispered.

“I love you, too.”

“You saved my heart,” he whispered.

“You saved my life.”

He smiled at her and kissed her lip lightly again, whispering, “That doesn’t even compare.”

Kairi smiled, eyes brimming with joyful tears.

“Thank you,” she gasped out and then she initiated the kiss.

…

Once the sun had sunk below the sea and blanketed the world in darkness, they returned to Sora’s home late, tracking sand across the cool hardwood. Kairi went to shower while Sora rinsed off the sand outside with the garden hose. He came in shirtless and dripping, leaving a trail of water across the floor. He could hear water running so Kairi was still in the shower. He went quickly to his bedroom, stripped off his damp sand-covered clothes, and pulled on fresh dry pajamas. Kairi came out of the bathroom wearing a tank top with no bra and short cotton shorts.

For a moment, they stood there, just staring at each other. 

Then, Sora broke the tension by giving her his trademark patented Sora-smile, swept himself into a low bow, and pulled back the covers on the bed. Then, nervously, he looked up at her and said, “Unless you’d rather have your own bed.”

Kairi smiled, just thankful for the offer. “No, Sora, I want to be with you,” she murmured. Then, she pulled back the covers on her side of the bed and slipped between the cool crisp sheets.

Sora stared at her, eyes wide. Then, he gave himself a little shake and lay down beside her.

“Will you kiss me again?” Kairi whispered.

Sora smiled and whispered, “Always.”

When their lips met, it was beautiful–like an explosion of fireworks, like a spread of pearl-white wings, like a newborn baby’s smile. Kairi opened her mouth to him, readily, feeling sure and safe. Sora put his hands through her scarlet locks, tugging her close to him. She wrapped her arm over his waist and tilted her head to nipple his lower lip.

“Sora, I want you to touch me,” Kairi whispered against his mouth and, much to his surprise, cupped him boldly through his pajamas.

He pulled away quickly, before he could lose himself to the sensations. “Wait, Kai, are you sure this is what you want? With me? Like this? Now?”

She gazed into his eyes. “You’d ask me that?”

He nodded. “I want you to be happy and… I don’t want you to regret,” he whispered. He trailed his fingertip down her stomach, over the groove of that destructive scar, sending a shiver through her body. “If you did, I don’t think I could take it.”

Kairi kissed his mouth and took his hand from her belly, guiding it gently to her breast. “I love you, Sora,” she whispered. “For the first time, I want to share my body with someone. I want to know what it feels like…” 

“But–” Sora cut off the question, choking on his tongue. Saying “But weren’t you a prostitute? How can you not know what sex feels like?” was a little cruel. 

Kairi smiled sadly and put her palm to the side of his soft face. He leaned into her touch, knowing that she understood him the way no one else ever could, even Riku. “I want to know what it feels like… with someone I love,” Kairi finished sweetly and kissed his lips.

Sora closed his eyes, smiling happily. “I’m glad,” he whispered and tenderly massaged her breast. 

She made a small gasping sound, a desperate moan, and he pulled his hand away. 

“Am I hurting you?”

“No, never,” Kairi murmured.

Sora smiled, kissed her, and cupped both of her breasts in his hands. He found her nipples and rolled them gently between his fingers through her tank top. She gasped his name, digging her fingers into his shoulders. Then, Sora got himself onto his knees, straddling her narrow hips and towering over her. She looked up at him, momentarily frightened, but this was Sora.

Sora was safety and trust and hope and friendship and protection. 

Sora was love.

He smiled at her and she smiled back. 

Sora dipped his head, catching her lips like pink candy. Their tongues battled, dancing, tangling. Kairi lifted her knee, pressing it against the hardening bulge of his manhood. Sora felt big. She wet her lips and cautiously slipped her fingers beneath the hem of his pajama shirt. Sora raised his arms over his head, making it easier for her to peel the garment away from his body. Then, she ran her fingers appreciatively down the contours of his muscular chest, tracing paths of pearl-white scars and bones. She put her lips to the hollow of his stomach, flicking her tongue into his belly button.

Sora let out a small girlish giggle and pushed Kairi back against the pillows. “Knock it off. That tickles!”

She bit her lip and looked at him mischievously. Sora grinned and kissed her playfully, making a loud smacking sound with his lips. Kairi giggled, clutching him against her chest and threading her fingers through his soft chestnut spikes.

Then, Sora’s shaking fingers were at the hem of her tank top. He didn’t lift it, but pulled back and looked into her eyes, asking permission. Kairi wet her lips and nodded, arching her back so he could pull the shirt over her head. Nervously, she crossed her arms over her breasts, hiding the naked flesh, suddenly ashamed.

“Wait, Sora,” she whispered.

He did, obligingly sitting back on his knees and resting his fingertips on the sharp bones of her hips. Somehow, knowing that he would wait, that he would stop when she asked him to, gave Kairi the urge to continue.

“Never mind,” she murmured and lowered her arms.

He smiled and kissed her again. His bare hands, free of gloves, over her naked breasts was like no feeling she could ever hope to describe. His skin was warm and rough but velvet-soft and his touch was so gentle on her hypersensitive flesh. When he rolled her nipples, a spike of pleasure she had never felt before shot through her body and settled deep in her damaged womb. She made a small sound deep in her throat, a moan and a cry of bliss.

Then, Sora’s lips were gone from hers. His mouth burned a trail down her jaw, urging her to turn her head and give him better access by nudging her cheek with his nose. She obliged quickly, moaning as he breathed hotly into her ear and nipped at the lobe. His tongue laved a path down her throat, suckling lightly at her pounding pulse and then feathering kisses across her long collarbones. He kissed the swell of her breast created by his cupping palms and then glanced up at her blissful face. 

He was going to ask if this was alright, but the look in her blue-violet eyes and the parted moisture of her candy-pink lips urged him to continue. 

Sora lowered his hand and put his mouth over the warm flesh. He suckled her nipple, nipping gently with his teeth, while his free hand massaged her other breast. She moaned and writhed, whispering his name and making small beautiful sounds deep in her chest. Through her pajamas, Sora cupped her, stroking her moist heat through the barriers of cloth.

Kairi’s eyes shot open, searched his face, and then fluttered closed again. She nodded and whispered, “I want you to, Sora.”

He swallowed and then gently slid both barriers aside. The first brush of his fingers on her soft heated core made Kairi tense, anticipating the brutal entrance of someone’s fat cock into her dry cunt, but this was Sora and she wanted this. She forced herself to relax and drew his mouth away from her breasts so she could kiss him again. 

“Are you okay? You’re tense,” Sora whispered against her lips. 

“Yes,” she murmured. “Please, Sora, I love you. I want you to.”

“I love you, too,” he said softly.

When Sora stroked her clit, sending a spike of white-hot pleasure through her, Kairi couldn’t help but scream out his name. Her teeth nipped at his jaw, tongue darting out along the shell of his ear. Grinning, Sora pushed his first finger into her. Her back arched against the mattress and her muscles clenched down on his finger, tightening around the digit in an almost virgin grip. He put his thumb on her clit and swirled it, relishing the way she squirmed against him. 

Then, her fingers were slipping past the waistband of his pajama bottoms, pushing them down. Her knee was against his crotch and he felt his hard manhood slide down her thigh, stretching out its impressive inches. Her small hands wrapped around him and she inhaled sharply.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Sora said quickly.

Kairi kissed him and he could feel her smiling. “No, Sora. I want you,” she whispered and allowed him to pull her panties and shorts down her legs. “All of you.”

Then, she rearranged her legs so that he fit neatly between her parted thighs. He slipped his tongue into her mouth, preparing to swallow her screams, and positioned himself at her moist slick entrance. Her fingers dug into his lower back, gripping him, telling him that she was ready. 

In one thrust, Sora sheathed himself inside Kairi’s body. She made a small whimper of pain and her muscles clamped down like a vice around him to the point where it was almost painful. Her chest heaved, breasts jiggling with the force of her gasping breath.

“Ah, Kai,” Sora gasped and fisted his hands in the sheets. She felt wonderful, tight and hot and perfect, just like he had always dreamed. 

Finally, her muscles loosened and she rocked her hips against his. 

“I’m alright,” she murmured. He was big, filling her emptiness to the brim, fitting inside her like a missing piece of a long lost puzzle. “Thank you for waiting.”

Sora kissed her and smiled and began to move. 

He set a fast pace, bringing her to the knife’s edge of bliss. She leaned her head back against the pillows, baring her vulnerable throat to him yet knowing her would never hurt her even as he nipped playfully at her pulse. He bent and kissed her with each thrust of his hips. A coil was building in Kairi’s stomach, tightening and tightening, a wonderful pain. Sora’s thrusts became more erratic, losing rhythm but not power. Then, reaching between their bodies, he rubbed her sensitive pearl and she careened over the edge.

Her muscles clamped down on him, dragging him over the edge with her. He spilled inside her, filling her emptiness with his seed. When he finally stilled, resting inside her body, softening, he gazed into her flushed pink face and she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Smiling up at him, Kairi touched his face, cupping his jaw like she wanted to memorize him.

“Sora, thank you,” she whispered.

He kissed her, swallowing everything she was going to say. When he pulled away, he whispered, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she said and then sighed deeply. “This feels wonderful.”

Sora rolled over, holding her body so that she lay on top of his chest with him still inside her. She rested her cheek on his chest, listening to the fast beat of his strong heart. As much as she wanted to stay awake and relish this moment, she fell asleep quickly. Sora was awake for much longer, holding her, breathing in the scent of her sweat and skin. 

Maybe the Key Bearer could work miracles: such as instilling loyalty and friendships in everyone and sacrificing himself to save the people he loved and healing a broken girl and mending so many fences among other things. This miracle would be Sora’s crowing achievement, the greatest gift of all.

Kairi was beautiful and she was his. Her bond with Sora was stronger than ever. They had given each other a small piece of themselves to keep that night and would never be separated again. 

As they lay there in that bed, three hearts beat as one.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns?

And, drum roll please, we are finished! Here we go. Very important author's note:

First, drop a review and let me know what you think! Are the characters way out of character? Does everybody hate Riku? Think I torture Sora way too much (but it's because he's so easy to be mean to, though I always make sure to give everybody a happy ending!)? Are permanently disgusted and can no longer even play Kingdom Hearts thanks to me? Loved it? Hated it? Are scared for life because of what happened to Kairi? (Flames will be used to roast marshmallows and weenies!) Think I need to do more editing before I post chapters? Post to slow? Chapters are to short? To long? Yada, yada, yada…

Second, I own nothing except my original characters: like Dominic, though I am ashamed to own him. I also own my plot! So there, now I can't be sued! 

Third, anyone who didn’t quite get it, they conceived a child there at the end. Even though Kairi can’t have kids, Sora the Miracle Key Bearer healed her entire body, so we have a bouncing baby on the way. 

Fourth, there will be no sequel… at all, so don't ask!

Fifth, check out my first ORIGINAL NOVEL! **The Breaking of Poisonwood by Paradise Avenger.** (Summary: People were dead. When Skye Davis bought me at a slave auction as a birthday present for his brother, I had no idea what my new life was going to be like, but I had never expected this. It all started when Venus de Luna was killed and I was to take her place, to become the new savior… Then, bad things happened and some people died. In the heart of the earth, we discovered the ancient being that Frank Davis had found and created and used to his advantage. The Poisonwood—)

Finally, thank you for making it this far! All the way to the end! Woot!

And so, I bid you adieu.


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